How are we going to power the world when fossil fuels run out? Nuclear energy has been questioned and praised by the world. The facts about this power source are often obscured by bias organizations and corporations. Nuclear energy has many benefits to it over conventional methods of creating energy. Nuclear energy is also clean, safe, reliable, and revolutionary. In a scientific view nuclear energy is the best way to power a growing world. Even with nuclear being clean, safe, reliable, and revolutionary there are some things we need to be careful about when having nuclear power plants in an area. Besides the fact nuclear energy is a very good energy alternative for the future of the world.
Nuclear energy is one of the cleanest energy choices around, considering the conventional energy source of fossil fuels. To start off the output of pollution made from the burning of fossil fuels yearly is approximately 7470 million tons of carbon dioxide alone, according to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC). There are also other pollutants produced during the burning or the production of fossil fuels. Now this might sound like a lot and it is. Nuclear energy worldwide on the other hand outputs a total of about 1800 tons of used fuel per year, but even when factor in that fossil fuel energy fuels account for 86.4% of the world’s energy and nuclear supplies only 8.5%. Nuclear energy still when calculated out if nuclear supplied 86.4% of the world’s energy its still approximately 18,300 tons of spent fuel which is still very miniscule compared to fossil fuels.
Another point on nuclear energy being clean is the way we collect uranium. The way we collect uranium for use in nuclear reactors is companies mine it. Concerned citizens might argue large mining operations are dangerous to the environment, but these mining operations are harmless underground or surface mining. With underground mining there is no environmental damage, because all potentially dangerous materials are left deep within the mine. Surface mining though is a bit more difficult to make safe because the company has to cover up the surface above with natural soil and fauna. The way we collect fossil fuels is to pump it up from the depths of the earth, but sometimes when they transport these vast amounts of oil to countries a ship might crash or have a malfunction leading to the partial or total leakage of oil destroying and or severely harming the ecosystem where the oil was spilled leading to the cause of cute sea otter, fish, algae, and any other living creature in the area to die. Now would you rather have this potentially dangerous process or much safer mining of uranium ore?
Moving onto nuclear energy being safe, for few reasons nuclear energy has been questioned as being a nuclear bomb waiting to happen. This idea is influenced by the accident of Chernobyl. A short history of this accident was a Russian reactor that had a meltdown and leaked radiation to the surrounding area forcing an evacuation of the city. The regulations and technology back then though are totally different then those in place today. Today’s nuclear power plants are built with thick concrete walls and radioactive protective barriers both are built into the plant to contain radioactivity weather it be under normal circumstances or under meltdown situations. Do you think nuclear power plants emit radioactivity? Well, your right and you also get radioactive rays when walking outside, when you’re near granite, and even drinking water. No need for alarm though, because all these acts are still well below the harmful level of radiation. The point is that nuclear power plants emit radiation, but so small that there is no cause for alarm.
Coming back to the accident at Chernobyl, many security measures, upgraded electronics and sensors, and new build codes have led to leaps and bounds in safety. Since Chernobyl happened on 26 April, 1986 there has been no major accident resulting in the evacuation of many people. Even in the worst case scenarios the way nuclear power plants are built today are so much more advanced, they have sensors watching what is happening in the reactor and if something is going wrong the computer will pull the uranium cores out of the reactor stopping the reactions. Some other features put into these nuclear facilities are signs that show how much radiation is at the point in the building. The facilities are also in direct contact with special crews who are capable to respond to the building should something go wrong.
The last point of this is that nuclear energy is more reliable then any other alternative energy such as wind, solar, hydro, and tidal wave energy. This is true because nuclear power plants have no external force stopping the production of energy unlike solar, hydro, and tidal wave energy. Solar energy is a good alternative energy but cannot run at night which is a bad, because the demand for energy is still needed after the sun goes down. Hydro energy is fit to run 24/7 but it can’t because of different river levels in different seasons and might have to release water because of weather related factors. Tidal wave energy can only run during tides which are not long and the tides differ from day to day. Wind energy also can’t run all the time, because the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Although these energies run during the day or at certain times of the day people may argue we can store the energy made in batteries. The problem is massive infrastructure must be built to accommodate battery stations too store energy, which would be expensive. Even if we had the funds the energy made by these power plants would not be enough to sustain the energy demands made at night and at other times during the day. Out of these alternatives to fossil fuels nuclear energy is the only method to produce energy 24 hours 7 days a week.
Nuclear energy does have its pros and cons and as you see that pros outweigh the cons. Nuclear energy is clean because it produces no carbon dioxide and miniscule amounts of outputs of wastes compared to fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is safe for the environment and you because it has many safety codes and procedures along with a safe way to store spent fuel. Nuclear energy is reliable because there are not external forces keeping it from producing energy. In general nuclear energy has the potential to become the future king of energy, but this is only if you voice your opinion to local government officials.