Nuclear Energy
Nuclear Energy: A Solution for the World's Energy Crisis. "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." Marie Curie, the discoverer of radium and Nobel Prize winner spoke these words many years ago. Years later, the United States along with the global community is on the brink of using a old, yet still unknown energy resource; nuclear energy. People fear nuclear energy from past accidents such as Chernobyl, but know very little about this energy source. Environmentalists and politicians around the world are focusing on the availability of fossil fuels in future years and tapping it from foreign sources. Global warming is also a major concern and it is argued that fossil fuels are to blame for this warming trend. Scientists are focusing on efficient ways to create nuclear energy and show the public that it is not to be feared. Nuclear energy is a safe, renewable, energy source that should be used to meet energy demands around the world. Among other problems the world faces, there is an expected rise in population of developing nations from 4billion to 8billion people. There is also an expected 20 percent rise of population in industrialized nations. A rise of population such as this will demand highe
the Chernobyl disaster tells us about the deficiencies of the Soviet political and administrative system rather than about problems with nuclear power"(102). The world must accept this new source before it sees the many disastrous consequences of pollution and global warming. A European Union and International Atomic Energy Agency study concludes that oil kills 32 times as many people through exposure to its pollutants (25). This type of flooding would cover coastal regions and the Earth's land mass would decrease greatly. The Three Mile Island accident was the result of a meltdown of the main reactor core. The waste that is produced from nuclear is easily stored and decays over time. ("Endorsements for Nuclear Energy" 3). Think to the future and to clean air and how this must be accomplished. Compared to a coal or nuclear plant that needs a few acres for a plant, a solar or wind plant will need up to a hundred square acres of land (35). The major problem that the public sees with nuclear energy is its relative safety. Along with the relative safety of nuclear accidents, comes the safety of storing nuclear waste. The United States alone is a major user of fossil fuels tapped from foreign sources. Nuclear energy advocates urge that nuclear power plants do not produce radiation in these high amounts. Looking back to the Clinton administration, the former president agreed with the Commerce Department's finding that the nation's growing reliance on fossil fuel imports threatened national security because of increased vulnerability to interruptions in oil supply (Watts 1). The article continues and brings up a statistic that a solar electric plant would yield about 6,850 metric tons of hazardous materials solely from processing over a period of 30 years (115).
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Acceptance Essays
