Environmental disaster, radioactive zombies, and a barren nuclear wasteland. All three are common first thoughts when it comes to thinking about nuclear energy. Why? For starters, because our culture loves to focus on the horror stories like Chernobyl and the possibility of a nuclear meltdown. Fortunately, no matter which way you look at it, none of the hype is justified. Nuclear energy is one of the safest, most environmentally friendly, and most efficient forms of energy production that we currently use. It is an incredibly underdeveloped technology, and with more funding and public support it has the potential to become a bridge to help slowdown climate change, and move us into a cleaner and more environmentally friendly future. Nuclear
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During the cold war and all the way up until very recently, one of the reasons that a country would build a nuclear plant was so that they could develop their own nuclear weapons. When you have one technology, the other is not far away. Critics like to argue that nuclear power is just simply a mask for a much more dangerous threat of developing nuclear weapons, but there are a few important points to remember. Firstly, it’s not about the prevention of nuclear weapons being made, but the prevention of nuclear weapons of getting into the wrong hands. We already have “more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia maintain roughly 1,800 of their weapons on high-alert status” (4). I think it is silly to worry that we are going to end up proliferating these weapons, clearly we already are and with over 15,000 of them, our only goal should be the prevention of dangerous countries of getting them. Nuclear power has no effect on this process. It simply provides a better answer to the energy crisis that our world currently faces. Us as a nation would be best off by leading by example and converting ourselves to completely nuclear and renewal power. Once other countries see that this is attainable it can spread throughout the world quickly and
During the cold war and all the way up until very recently, one of the reasons that a country would build a nuclear plant was so that they could develop their own nuclear weapons. When you have one technology, the other is not far away. Critics like to argue that nuclear power is just simply a mask for a much more dangerous threat of developing nuclear weapons, but there are a few important points to remember. Firstly, it’s not about the prevention of nuclear weapons being made, but the prevention of nuclear weapons of getting into the wrong hands. We already have “more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia maintain roughly 1,800 of their weapons on high-alert status” (4). I think it is silly to worry that we are going to end up proliferating these weapons, clearly we already are and with over 15,000 of them, our only goal should be the prevention of dangerous countries of getting them. Nuclear power has no effect on this process. It simply provides a better answer to the energy crisis that our world currently faces. Us as a nation would be best off by leading by example and converting ourselves to completely nuclear and renewal power. Once other countries see that this is attainable it can spread throughout the world quickly and