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.
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