When the term "nuclear power" crosses your mind, what is the instant thought in your mind? Is it Homer Simpson, half-asleep at the control panel of his town's nuclear reactor? Is it a supermarket tabloid photo showing a baby born with three heads because its mother lived next to a nuclear power plant? (Giacobello 5) In the world we are living now, nuclear power seem to make people fear the most our of all the other energy sources. The reason why they fear the nuclear power is because the mountain of histories it has made.At the end of World War II, nuclear weapons were used when the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were bombed by the United States. And the nuclear reactor of the former Soviet Union's Chernobyl exploded in 1896 in the Ukraine.
(Giacobello 6) Therefore, Nuclear power not only is a tool that can be used beneficially, it can also be used for the destruction of humanity, let's explore the positive and negative ways it has been used already, the discoveries being made today, and most importantly, this resource's potential for our future.Before explaining the potential usage of nuclear power, we should know how nuclear power works first. Uranium is a radioactive chemical material. It is also the source of nuclear power. A dense metal found in Earth's crust, uranium was discovered in 1789. Atoms are the tiny building blocks of all material on Earth, and nuclear energy is created when a uranium atom is split.
When the atom splits, it releases energy in the form of heat. Often a few neutrons are also released in the split. These neutrons may split other nuclei, releasing more heat and more neutrons. This chain reaction is called nuclear fission.
It is what makes nuclear power possible. The heat therefore is released b y nuclear fission is what we use to produce electricity. (Giacobello 14) We do not have worry about using up the uranium, because there's plenty of it in the earth, and to generate power, only a small amount is needed. On the contrary, the amount of oil and coal we use to create electricity is much more than uranium. But not all uranium is radioactive.
Only about 0. 7 percent of uranium is the isotope U-235, the isotope needed for fission. (Giacobello 15) The issues surrounding nuclear power are complicated.Many people are still uncertain whether to support the use of nuclear power or not. An important step toward greater understanding of this future energy issue is to examine its pros and cons. The threat of global warming is a serious issue.
Fossil fuel gives out carbon dioxide when they are burned. It is shown that this emission traps the heat and stays in our atmosphere and affecting the overall temperature and causes it to rise, which is how global warming is created. Now the good point about nuclear fission is stated that it provides energy and doesn't give off damaging carbon dioxide at the same time.It has been estimated that using nuclear power today keeps as much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as taking ninety-four million cars off the road.
" - John Giacobello Not only does fossil fuel give out carbon dioxide (see picture 1), it also creates toxic metals, cadmium, sulfur dioxide, mercury and arsenic, and all these other organic substances that increase a chance to get cancer, risking both our health and the environment around us. (Giacobello 42) Properly maintained nuclear reactors give off only small amounts of emissions.Some say the small increase in radiation they emit is harmful, but they're not yet to be proven. As mentioned earlier, the prices of oil and coal and other fossil fuels are rising as the resources are decreasing and sooner or later, it will run out. However, we have a lot of uranium and it is count as an abundant source of energy. The most beneficial fact is that uranium can be reprocessed, hence saving the environment as it produces less waste.
The uranium in old nuclear weapons can be used to generate power. (Giacobello 43) These are important ideas to consider when thinking about our future.Back in the past, nuclear power was not expensive at all, in fact, it was cheap. Today, however, to generate nuclear power costs a lot and forced the price to rise tremendously.
To ensure safety, there are new types of safety equipment which needs to be installed and this had added price to the nuclear power, not to mention there are other expenses to store the nuclear wastes as well. A 1986 study of seventy-five U. S. reactors compared their original estimated construction costs with their final costs. The study found that the original estimation has been $45 billion.The final costs totaled $145 billion! (Giacobello 44) Even though this was a disaster in the business history, some people still say that new and more efficient designs of reactors would be safer.
The total costs would then be much less. International terrorism is a great threat to nuclear power. Terrorists are trying to steal nuclear materials that can be used to make nuclear bombs. Planting the most common explosives in a reactor could result in a massive nuclear catastrophe, spreading deadly radioactive materials over a wide area. This would kill and injure hundreds or thousands of people.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not require that power plants be able to defend against these attacks in order to be licensed. Critics of nuclear power say this lack of security makes us all vulnerable to attack. (Giacobello 44) The NRC makes sure nuclear power plants are as safe as possible. Yet human error is always possible.
In fact, all nuclear accidents to date have been caused by human error. There is no way, then to completely prevent accidents. Yet precautions can be made so that accidents cause minimal damage, as in the Three Mile Island accident.The Chernobyl accident, however, was disastrous on a grand maintained with a highly unskilled staff.
Safety is definitely the main problem of nuclear power. Do we risk a potentially fatal nuclear accident, or do we risk destruction by pollution from fossil fuels and global warming? Weighing the consequences of each choice, there are, unfortunately, no simple answers. The question of danger from radiation given off by nuclear power plants is still unanswered. Many experts have said that a reactor gives off no more radiation than already exists in nature and, therefore, poses no risk to any life on this planet.However, there is evidence that exposure to enough radiation can lead to cancer and genetic mutations in offspring. (Giacobello 46) Waste disposal of highly radioactive substances are also an issue.
Some say that we can simply bury the wastes deep under the ground and seal up the hole (see picture 2). However, a suitable place has not been found yet for that hole. Furthermore, if we do act this action out, there is a risk. How sure can we be that the storage facility we choose will not be broken open by an earthquake or contaminate the water supply in the area?Some people favor the idea of shooting the waste products into outer space in the future, calling it "extraterrestrial disposal".
(Giacobello 53)The appeal of this idea is that it would send the potentially harmful waste as far away from earth as possible. It would be gone for good, and we would never have to deal with it again. But it is highly impractical today, research, development and completion are just too expensive. There would also be many risks, including the danger of a rocket that's holding nuclear waste malfunctioning while still in our atmosphere.
Hence, this method is not likely to be explored in the near future.Nuclear power has travelled a rocky journey through its destruction in the history and the production in the present. Public opinion still impacts heavily against it. As our society and population is growing rapidly and our resources decreasing, we will avoid it anymore instead we must face our fears.
If we can put the past behind us, we will open possibilities for the future. Let us hope that we can come to a decision before we reach a crisis situation. As an Indian physicist says, the Dr. Homi Bhabha, "No energy is more expensive than no energy. "(Giacobello 55)Bibliographyhttp://members.tripod.com/funk_phenomenon/nuclear/procon.htm
