Persuasive Essay On Nuclear Power Plants

All throughout the world people and countries are searching for ways to replace fossil fuels as an energy source, and one way they try is nuclear power. Nuclear power plants have the potential to be very dangerous to not only the people that live near, but also the entire area. If something goes wrong it could cause an entire swath of land to become uninhabitable for millions of years, basically forever in the spectrum of human life. Therefore it is imperative that before nuclear power plants are built that the area must be not only be a good location for producing energy, but also a great location that has no real threat of a natural disaster destroying a nuclear facility. An example of a place where a nuclear facility should not be …show more content…
Nuclear power plants can prepare for most problems that it may run into, but not everything can be perfect. These protections can protect against most earthquakes, however, earthquakes can get to be very powerful. An earthquake’s magnitude can be measured on a scale developed in 1935 by Charles F. Richter, called the Richter Scale. The scale measures in a whole digit followed by decimal fractions, so it can be read like a 2.3, or a 7.9 earthquake. The scale measure goes from low to high, with each whole number increase representing a tenfold increase in magnitude. Earthquakes that measure around or below a 2.0 can barely be felt even by people who are right on top of the epicenter, or center of the earthquake. These quakes are also called microquakes because they are not very strong. A moderately strong earthquake measures around a 5.0 earthquake. These earthquakes can be felt, but will almost never cause major damage or pose too much of a threat to people. Once an earthquake gets to be around a 6.0 it can be considered a strong earthquake. Once earthquakes get more powerful than this they can and do cause major damage and can be a major threat to everyone within the quake