Nuclear Energy

Article Date: 10/24/2001
Title: Nuclear Energy
Author: Bhaskar Chitraju

Nuclear Energy is one of the renewable sources of energy that fulfills the requirements of mankind to sustain humanity on earth. Nuclear Energy is one of the prime choices for experts and myself among renewable sources of energy. We will be discussing benefits and risks along with its impacts on our life in the following paragraphs.

There are numerous benefits and advantages of Nuclear Power Plants. First of all, it fulfills our future energy requirements. Second, it is environmentally friendly, in a positive view. Finally, it does not damage the Earth’s environments, which have been seriously affected by pollution caused by fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources such as coal and petroleum. Unlike fossil fuels, Nuclear Energy is safe and does not harm the environment in its due process.

Like other renewable sources of energy, Nuclear Energy doesn’t come cheap. Nuclear Power Plants are expensive to build and need a lot of attention and thus making them costlier to maintain. On average, energy obtained from Nuclear Power Plants is far more compared to their counterparts, but also a lot more expensive. Therefore, cost and maintenance of Nuclear Power Plants have made obtaining of energy a lot harder.

Apart from being expensive, there are also other disadvantages of Nuclear Energy. Nuclear Energy has some serious negative factors, which have led to some serious debates between intellectuals and environmental experts. Many argue that risks posed by Nuclear Energy outweigh its benefits, and in some cases it is true.

Nuclear Energy is environmentally friendly but it is not environmentally safe, meaning it can threaten the earth’s environment if it is not handled properly. It has some serious negative consequences and results on our environment.

Few examples that show the dangers of Nuclear Power Plants would Chernobyl accident in Post-U.S.S.R, which created havoc in the entire Europe by polluting rivers and local environment through radiation. It’s cleaning up cost millions of dollars and displaced many people’s homes and life’s forever.

Other accidents that caused concerns were the Three Mile Island accident in Three Mile, United States. This caused some serious concerns among the general public about the safety of Nuclear Power Plants.

These accidents clearly show that small “human errors’ can have disastrous results on our environment and on our surrounding atmosphere. Therefore, it clearly demonstrates that Nuclear Energy could be lethal if it is not handled properly, thus making it not environmentally safe.

As told in the above paragraph, these small accidents can change surrounding areas completely. When an accident occurs, they first highly contaminate surrounding areas by releasing huge amounts of radiation. This radiation later mixes into ground and anything in it and then destroy local habitat by entering rivers and reservoirs. People cannot live in these areas anymore due to high radiation and health hazards. High radiation in take can cause certain diseases like cancer. Worse, anyone involving in cleaning these areas may also be prone to these diseases. Add on that, cleaning costs are overwhelmingly huge and it takes a lot of time.

There are also other affects of Nuclear Power Plants usages. To run and produce energy from these plants, water is heated to high temperatures and when it is unnecessary it is released into local rivers on reservoirs, thus killing local marines habitat and also other plan lives.

Its dangers do not end there. Resources obtained from Nuclear Power Plants or Nuclear Energy can be used in making Nuclear Weapons. Nuclear Weapons are the most destructive weapons ever created by mankind. Its’ usage in a war can leave thousands to millions lives and affecting everything around. Due to devastating affects Nuclear Weapons are now being produced as a weapon of war. These weapons now are openly or covertly being developed by nations. Many countries are using their limited resources in pursuing Nuclear Technology, which can be used for other purposes. Thus, causing proliferation, meaning spread of nuclear technology to other countries. Even bigger problem is that this technology may land into the hands of so called “rogue nations” whose purpose and goals threaten world security and peace. Few examples of these rogue nations would be North Korea and Somalia. There are many stockpiles of nuclear weapons varying from ballistic missiles to bombs carried by airplanes and submarines. Russia and United States have the highest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Therefore, from the above paragraphs and information given, its can be noted that there are lot of benefits of Nuclear Energy but with it there are also many risks that has to taken care of.

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