We are in the midst of shifting away from fossil fuels, and while we have a pretty good idea about what the distant future will hold with solar energy, the transition period is much more mysterious. I think the answer has been in front of us this whole time, nuclear energy. Fifty or sixty years ago, nuclear energy was considered the future, a cleaner more powerful alternative to that of oil and coal. with concepts like the Ford Nucleon, a car powered my a fission reactor in its trunk, the future was supposed to be clean and efficient. However, looking at today, we still use oil and coal, but now with some supplementary energy sources like hydro, solar, or wind. So what happened? With great power comes great responsibility, a quote from either
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Radiation is surrounding practically all humans at all the time, it might come from the Sun, it might come from radio towers, or even your Wi-Fi router. There is more radiation being today produced than ever before, and we are okay with it as long it is not a radioactive element. Radiation is bad for our cells, however nuclear fission will only give off dangerous levels of radiation in disasters. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are both thriving cities again, and in 30 years Chernobyl has become habitable again, no deformed animals or mutants. It 's not like coal and oil are impervious to disasters, all over the world, there have been explosions from oil, coal mines collapsing, the death tolls of nuclear reactors are significantly lower and less costly to the environment in the long run. With The Great Smog of London killing over ten thousand people, all because it was not windy enough for four days. Looking at deaths for every trillion kWhr, coal is by far the worst with 100,000, oil at 36,000, solar at 440, and finally nuclear at a paltry 90, this includes both Chernobyl and Fukushima. There are a great deal of deaths from people in all forms of energy and yet nuclear gets the worst wrap even though it is safest globally. Other than low loss of life, nuclear power plants tend to have high set up costs and incredible low operating costs, …show more content…
By comparison due to the way in which fossil fuels work, not only are they unsustainable in terms of energy production, but also in terms externalities and negative climate changes. The waste product of other forms of energy can lead to direct negative quality of life as in smog, or future negative quality of life such as climate change. The radioactive waste that is a byproduct of nuclear fission, can have a greater negative impact if cared for poorly, on the other hand, it is significantly less impactful when stored responsibly, not even to mention the massive amount of waste in land fills that also pollute the ground, by comparison radioactive waste is much less detrimental to the environment. This is obviously under perfect conditions which will not often be the case, however in terms of unsustainable energy nuclear is significantly cleaner by comparison. In no way is there reason to stay on nonrenewable forever, but nuclear seems like the best transitional step with minimal consequences. Nuclear was successful in in the past, and can be even better in the
Radiation is surrounding practically all humans at all the time, it might come from the Sun, it might come from radio towers, or even your Wi-Fi router. There is more radiation being today produced than ever before, and we are okay with it as long it is not a radioactive element. Radiation is bad for our cells, however nuclear fission will only give off dangerous levels of radiation in disasters. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are both thriving cities again, and in 30 years Chernobyl has become habitable again, no deformed animals or mutants. It 's not like coal and oil are impervious to disasters, all over the world, there have been explosions from oil, coal mines collapsing, the death tolls of nuclear reactors are significantly lower and less costly to the environment in the long run. With The Great Smog of London killing over ten thousand people, all because it was not windy enough for four days. Looking at deaths for every trillion kWhr, coal is by far the worst with 100,000, oil at 36,000, solar at 440, and finally nuclear at a paltry 90, this includes both Chernobyl and Fukushima. There are a great deal of deaths from people in all forms of energy and yet nuclear gets the worst wrap even though it is safest globally. Other than low loss of life, nuclear power plants tend to have high set up costs and incredible low operating costs, …show more content…
By comparison due to the way in which fossil fuels work, not only are they unsustainable in terms of energy production, but also in terms externalities and negative climate changes. The waste product of other forms of energy can lead to direct negative quality of life as in smog, or future negative quality of life such as climate change. The radioactive waste that is a byproduct of nuclear fission, can have a greater negative impact if cared for poorly, on the other hand, it is significantly less impactful when stored responsibly, not even to mention the massive amount of waste in land fills that also pollute the ground, by comparison radioactive waste is much less detrimental to the environment. This is obviously under perfect conditions which will not often be the case, however in terms of unsustainable energy nuclear is significantly cleaner by comparison. In no way is there reason to stay on nonrenewable forever, but nuclear seems like the best transitional step with minimal consequences. Nuclear was successful in in the past, and can be even better in the