WAC: Should we go nuclear?

Have you ever heard of nuclear energy? Chances are you have. Or at least you’ve heard the word ‘nuclear’. That’s likely. The first thing that probably pops into your mind when you hear the word ‘nuclear’ is a mushroom cloud. A big, giant, ugly, messy explosion. Your second thought is probably toxic waste. Those little caution signs that are shown in movies or pictures that mean nearly nothing except a fictional idea. That isn’t all nuclear energy, true, and nuclear energy isn’t all that. But it isn’t at all a good resource to use. Nuclear energy is a form of energy that doesn’t use fossil fuels or emit greenhouse gases. So it should be good, right? Greenhouse gases are the big thing that causes global warming. So if the power plants don’t let out as much fossil fuels, that should be good, right? Not exactly. There are several problems with nuclear energy, and big ones at that. It’s expensive. Very. It’s radioactive. Very. It’s dangerous. Incredibly. It’s a good source of energy, yes, and mostly clean as well, but before you go on and buy it, at least listen to some evidence. You might be intrigued by the idea, or you might not be. Whatever you think. 

Nuclear energy is not a good form of power to use. First reason why: it’s incredibly expensive. According to PBS learning media, nuclear energy is run by uranium, an extremely radioactive element that needs to be mined out of the Earth. NPR says that it is very expensive to keep the nuclear plants open. The government has to pay to get the parts manufactured overseas and shipped to the plant site. If one of the parts breaks in the transport, it costs more money to fix them, or, if necessary, replace them. And nuclear plants are pretty big. If even one little screw was missing, the whole thing could blow. Besides, once the uranium is used, the toxic waste must be stored in heavy metal caskets and sealed underground-which costs more money. Once that is kept underground for thousands of years, the waste will begin to lose radioactivity and will be able to be recycled, but it’s still very expensive to keep it locked away (and to find places to lock it). More and more people are realizing the dangers of using nuclear energy and have stopped using it, causing the people who work at the nuclear plants to lose their jobs. Even if the plants are supposed to remain open, more and more are being forced to close. The nuclear power comes from little pellets of uranium and plutonium that can generate more energy than a ton of coal. This should be good, since nobody wants to burn coal, but uranium is very expensive to mine. And plutonium. And both of those elements are very radioactive and extremely dangerous. So that’s just one reason why nuclear energy is not the right choice. 

We should avoid using nuclear energy because it itself and the elements that make it up are extremely radioactive and extremely dangerous. The little pellets that are used to bring power to big buildings and homes are made up of two elements, uranium and plutonium. Plutonium is so dangerous, that, as stated by this YouTube video on nuclear energy, “one milligram could kill you.” So plutonium in itself is a very dangerous substance, but, to make matters worse, nuclear energy uses uranium as well. Uranium is an element that needs to be mined out of the ground, and the workers who mine it and handle the uranium should be a bit worried. According to KQED Science, mining uranium and cleaning up after toxic spills increases the risk of thyroid cancer and leukemia not just among the workers and cleanup teams but to the people living near and around the spill sites. Besides, nuclear energy and these little pellets are used to make nuclear weapons. The YouTube video mentions that some countries gave others some nuclear technology for peace and the receiving countries made weapons out of them. As mentioned early on in the video, a nuclear test bomb drop in 1944 (WWII) caused two huge cities to be destroyed with only two nuclear bombs. After that, nuclear power was meant to generate large amounts of energy, but people couldn’t help but think that it was always connected with nuclear weapons.

Some people may argue that nuclear energy is the right choice. There are a few good reasons why nuclear energy is good, but there are more reasons to why it’s bad. The YouTube video 3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Awesome states, “Countless cases of cancer and lung disease or accidents in coal mines have been avoided because of nuclear power.” It also states that many people might have the wrong idea about nuclear power because big accidents caused by nuclear spills will stick in your mind and be all of the news, but coal and oil (and other fossil fuels) kill people without anybody sticking it on the press, so generally, we tend to think that nuclear is bad just because we don’t hear about deaths caused by what we already use. The video also says, “Since 1976, about 64 giga tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions have not been pumped out into the atmosphere thanks to nuclear energy.” Many people believe that if nuclear power doesn’t emit fossil fuels, it’s good. It should be good, but the benefits are not equally balanced with the risks. There are several benefits to using nuclear energy, but they just aren’t enough. Nuclear spills do awful things to beautiful places. Imagine that you lived in a small town just a mile from the ocean. You had the best view, and your world was beautiful. You had a happy little life with your parents, aunt, cousins and grandparents in a little beach house. One day, some workers came in behind your house a few miles and a few months later, there was a nuclear plant. You aren’t sure about it, but your family tells you not to worry. Later that year, the nuclear plant breaks down, and your area is evacuated. You live in a small, cramped apartment further inland until, five years later, you are allowed to return. But when you get back to your home, nothing is the same. All of the pretty plants have been ripped away, and construction workers have replaced the soil with asphalt. Worst of all, the beach path is roped off because too many toxins found their way into the water. And that isn’t it. Your grandparents, strong and healthy people, didn’t make it out in time. Your little baby cousin is very sick with a deadly lung disease that could be the end of her. This sort of thing is real. Areas and environments can be destroyed by these devastating effects of nuclear energy. Humans and animals, babies, elderly and middle-aged alike are all harmed but these effects. Sure, it powers your house good. Who cares? If my family were going to die, I’d rather not have a working electrical panel.

Nuclear energy isn’t just the bad thing. It’s awful. It destroys ecosystems on land and in the seas (if the waste can find a way to get there) and kills thousands of people and animals. This is more than just the power going out for a few days. This kind of thing is real. It can actually happen. And it did, Friday, March 11, 2011, in Fukushima, Japan. NPR tells about this devastating accident and all of the destruction that followed. The World Nuclear Association says, “Following a major earthquake, a 15-metre tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, causing a nuclear accident on 11 March 2011. All three cores largely melted in the first three days.” This is just one example of how devastating the effects of nuclear spills can be. Though the 9.0 earthquake and the 15-meter tsunami were not Japan’s fault, the unstable reactors were. And though the technical cause of the explosion was nature, it is still our fault for not making the reactors strong enough. And what’s worse, that happened in 2011, nearly seven years ago, and people are still relocated; cleanup crews are still cleaning up. And this is all because we figured out how to make and use an incredibly dangerous type of energy that should not be used.

Nuclear energy should not be used. It’s bad, it’s dangerous, and it hurts more lives than it saves. We shouldn’t want to use this dangerous form of radioactive death, but some people just like to argue for the other position. Nuclear energy is a dangerous thing that harms countless people. Even if the plant never did have a spill, there are still potential dangers that we face because of it. Mining the uranium and plutonium to make the power pellets is a dangerous thing to do that can cause harmful diseases. And with the toxic waste that is still the product of the process needing to be locked away for thousands of years to lose its radioactivity and be recycled, people still face dangers and problems. The waste does need to be concealed away, but humans are running out of places to put it. With toxic waste being formed regularly, we’ll soon run out of places to put it. And like the Fukushima accident, the toxins can find their way into the waters and soils and contaminate them. Even now, there are 9 million bags of contaminated soil that do not have a place to become clean. The water is still contaminated, and with our recent water problems, this is one of the worst things that could happen. Solar and wind energy is indeed the way to go, but lots of people argue (and are correct) that solar and wind energy are not strong enough to power the many things that we need them to. But there is a way to fix that problem. If we made our roadways solar, we might have enough energy from that to power the world. Solar power is clean, so that’s a major plus. The benefits outweigh the risks. But this particular idea does have a few problems with it. The problem is that it’s also going to be humongously expensive, btu at least it won’t damage the Earth. And that would be a mighty fine way to fix our problem. Then we wouldn’t have to go nuclear at all.

Nuclear Energy

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This week in class, we have been learning about nuclear energy. We have to write an essay on the benefits and disadvantages of using nuclear energy. It isn’t all bad, but I’m saying that I’m against it because, based on the articles that I’ve read to prepare, nuclear energy isn’t such a god choice.

I did learn that nuclear power plants don’t use any fossil fuels and don’t emit greenhouse gases. And that one little uranium pellet (which is what makes the energy work) makes more energy than a ton of coal.

Even though nuclear power is the most energy efficient, it isn’t all benefits. In 2011, Fukushima, Japan suffered through an earthquake and a 15-meter tsunami before the reactors in a nearby power plant exploded, spilling toxic waste all over the nearby areas with tons of damage, meaning that people are still cleaning up after it today. There are 9 million bags of contaminated topsoil that have no place to be stored. It is crucial that nuclear waste be packed away somewhere so that, over time, it can lose its radioactivity and become less dangerous. Groundwater is dripping from the mountains and through the site, carrying poison into the ocean with it, contaminating the water and harming marine life.

This is not all. Nuclear energy is very expensive. I takes lots of money to mine the uranium and plutonium to make the pellets for energy, and if there are any repairs that need to be made to the plant, they must be fixed, and that costs money as well. In fact, more and more plants are closing because people are realizing the expenses and have stopped using it. Nuclear energy is too risky to use.

S&EP: SP6, Constructing explanations and designing solutions

This week we began to construct our essay telling people that nuclear energy was bad or good and why. I learned a lot about nuclear energy, and I think that it is very harmful. It should not be used in homes and other places r to power buildings. In fact, nuclear technology that is used to power homes is used to make nuclear weapons. I don’t like the fact that in the future weapon technology might be powering my house. My teacher, my friends and I also came up with ideas for solutions. Solar and wind energy are clean sources of energy, but there is no way that we can make them our only sources of power. If we made our roadways solar, that might be enough to power the world. Of course, it would be very expensive, but it’s a good enough idea for right now.

XCC: Cause and Effect

A cause and effect relationship is where something happens and causes something else to happen. For example: it rains, which causes it to flood. Someone takes the pancake at the bottom of the huge stack, which causes the huge stack to fall. In this case, and earthquake and tsunami happened, causing nuclear reactors to explode and spray toxic chemicals around. Nuclear reactors exploded and sprayed toxic chemicals around, causing thousands of people to relocate, die or become deathy ill.

High Adventure Science 4/14

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This week in class, we have been working on HAS. HAS stands for High Adventure Science. We have 5 modules to work on, ana this week we have completed 4 of them. I have learned a lot about climate change and this that cause or help it.

Module 1: Earth’s changing climates

In this module, we have explored some climate change data of the climates through the decades 1884-2012. It was quite an interesting video that shows how the global heat has changed as humans grow more experienced.



The light blue areas are colder areas; dark blue very cold. The orange is a mild warmth, and the dark orange to crimson is incredibly hot. Believe it or not, in the past 50 years, the area that has had the most change in temperature is the Arctic and Antarctic. The areas where it is the coldest becomes the warmest.




This graph shows the temperature change from 1880-2010.Each point on the graph is an average for the 12 months preceding it. It shows the temperature of the oceans, and for the most part, they have been getting hotter. Occasionally, the ocean temperature will drop, but mostly it is rising, which could pose huge problems for marine life.

This graph also shows the global temperature, but it has a slight more detail. The black points show the same data that the previous graph showed.The red line shows the 5 year average. The two lines, red and black, are not following each other because the black line is a little bit more detailed. The black line shows the yearly average of the ocean temperatures, whereas the red line shows the 5 year average, which would prove to be slightly different. Mostly they are following each other, but there are some slight differences.

The green bars on the graph show how unsure scientists are about the data. The longer they are, the more unsure they are. The reason that the green error bar near the 1880s is longer than the one in the 2000s is because back in the 1880s, scientists did not have the technology and data machines that they have today. It would make sense that they were very unsure, because they had no technology to make sure. In the 2000s, they still didn’t have as much as today, but they had more than they had in the 1880s, which would explain why they are slightly more sure.




Scientists have obtained the previous data using thermometers, which is slightly easier than trying to collect temperatures and data before it was even invented! The picture shows a 19 cm long section of an ice core from a Greenland ice sheet. Scientists examine the layers in the ice cores to try and predict the temperatures of the times back when the ice core was being formed. The winter layers are darker than the summer layers are because in the winter, the ice had a chance to freeze more thoroughly than in the summer.

This graph proves that over the past 10,000 years, the temperature has been slowly increasing. It is getting slightly warmer than before. Based on these graphs, scientists can infer that global warming is happening, but they still do not have enough data to know for sure what is going on.
Module 2: Interactions within the atmosphere

In this module, we began to learn about the effects of solar and infrared radiation on the Earth’s surface and atmosphere.




This was the interactive that we used for the first part of module 2. This shows the heat (red), carbon dioxide (green), and the infrared and solar radiation (yellow and purple arrows).




However, if you click the ‘Erupt’ button on the model, the volcano releases lots of the green carbon dioxide into the air. After clicking erupt about 10-15 times, this is what the model looks like.

The sunlight bounces off of the ground and rebounds back into the atmosphere. Sometimes it is absorbed into the ground and moves around underground.

When carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it warms it up. This is because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. When the solar radiation penetrates the atmosphere, the greenhouse gases trap the light and the warmth from the sun inside the atmosphere. This makes the air around us and everything in the atmosphere a lot warmer.

Next we studied radiation-gas interactions. In this part of module 2, we had four models to choose from: sun on the ground, sun on CO2, infrared on CO2, and sun on ground and CO2.

In sun on the ground, the sunlight that came out of the sun hit the ground and bounced up. Occasionally, there were some infrared radiation waves coming up as well.






In sun on CO2, the sunlight heated the carbon dioxide molecules, which made the temperature (located on the right side of the screenshots) rise faster.






In infrared on CO2, the infrared radiation waves made the carbon dioxide heat much faster, and the temperature rose up a ton.



In sun on ground and CO2, the temperature rose a lot faster because the solar and infrared radiation are heating the ground and the carbon dioxide, increasing the temperature faster.



Module 3: Sources, sinks and feedback



This shows the carbon cycle. The sinks are any area that take in carbon. The atmosphere, land, ocean and sediments are all sinks because they all take in carbon. Reservoirs are where the carbon is stored. Like all matter on Earth, carbon is neither created or destroyed, only recycled.

In this module, we learned about carbon’s solubility, which is how easily it dissolves in different temperatures of water. For carbon, the colder the water, the quicker it dissolves.

Positive feedback is something that is like a cycle. You study for a test, so you get a good grade. The good grade motivates you to study more, so the more you study, the better grades you get. Example by HAS.

Module 4: Feedbacks of ice and clouds

The amount of ice coverage matters, as we found out in the next module. In the model we used, if we put no ice coverage, than the water and atmosphere grew very hot. If we put 100% ice coverage, then the radiation bounces off of it and back into space, cooling the atmosphere.



You can feel the difference between a cloudy day and a sunny day. When there are clouds around, the radiation actually mostly never makes it through the cloud cover and bounces back into space, cooing the atmosphere dramatically.



If there were cloudy days all the time, global warming would probably stop. It might not be fixed, but clouds sure are a good thing so far.

S&EP: SP2: Using Models

This week, we certainly used a lot of models! All of the previous screenshots in my summary are all shots of the models that we have used. There were actually more than this, but I only added a few. These models are very helpful to help us see the physical things that HAS was trying to teach us. In the modules, depending on the models, there were some graphs that showed temperature, water vapor levels, carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere and ocean, and some more. These graphs I found very helpful. But some of the models were less accurate. In the article we read on HAS, it said that clouds deflect radiation better based on their altitude. In the model, we could not place the clouds at the height we wanted. That I found unhelpful.

XCC: Scale, Proportion, and Quantity.

When we are looking at the models, like the volcano from module one, it matters the quantity of the carbon dioxide. When the model started, the amount of carbon dioxide was in proportion to everything else, so the graph was balanced out. But when we clicked ‘Erupt’, more carbon dioxide was released into the air, make the graphs non-proportional. This means that the quantity matters.