Science WAC #3-Should We Expand the Use of Nuclear Energy Argumentative Essay | Nicolas Reed

Nicolas Reed

Science 7

Mrs. Garcia

4/23/18

Should We Expand the Use of Nuclear Energy?

       Have you ever thought of nuclear energy as a way to positively affect climate change? Nuclear energy is a process in which neutrons crash into a certain uranium atom causing that atom to split. This fission produces a lot of energy, and it doesn’t just stop there, after the neutron splits the uranium atom, that neutron is free to crash into more uranium atoms causing it to go into a cycle that when controlled in a nuclear reactor can produce a lot of energy. We should expand the use of nuclear energy as a way to help fight against the climate change problem. Nuclear energy is much better for the environment and produces much more energy than any other source can. We also have the right technology to make producing nuclear energy much more safe and much more waste efficient. Climate change is a huge problem in today’s world and we have yet to find a solution, and nuclear energy may just be exactly that.

       Nuclear energy is carbon free (carbon is the main source of greenhouse gases) meaning that if we were to expand it, we will be releasing much less greenhouse gases into the air, which can really help our climate change problem. When looking at temperature graphs we can see that temperature has increased in the past just like how it is currently, but it has not increased at such as it has been recently (from the 1980’s to current time). And based on climate models, we can predict that this will continue to happen until we figure something out. Climate change also makes extreme weather even more extreme. It may not be the cause of these extreme weather events, but it definitely makes them worse. So how much longer do the effects of climate change have to go on until we realize that we need to change, and we need to begin to use nuclear energy? Furthermore, nuclear energy is not just carbon free, it also has much more benefits as well such as saving lives. In the article titled “Nuclear Power: The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful” Sam Good states, “It is estimated that nuclear facilities have saved 1.84 million lives since their inception by preventing the release of countless amounts of harmful pollutants/emissions.”

       Nuclear energy is a much better source of energy than fossil fuels and matches pretty well against other alternative energy sources. In the video titled, “Nuclear Energy: Is Fission the Future? | Exploring Energy” California Academy of Sciences states, “Just 1 uranium pellet less than an inch long can produce as much energy as a ton of coal can (2000 pounds of coal).” Meaning that nuclear energy can produce the same amount of energy that coal can, with a smaller amount of the energy producing resource (for nuclear energy it is uranium). The same goes for the other fossil fuels as well. On top of that, nuclear energy is carbon dioxide free, whereas fossil fuels are the main producer of carbon dioxide in the world. Yet we still continue to use fossil fuels even though they release carbon into the atmosphere. So why are we still using fossil fuels to produce energy when nuclear energy can help us with our problems and fossil fuels cannot? One such fossil fuel is coal. Coal mines are very dangerous and they hurt the environment. In the article “Occupational Safety in Uranium Mining” by World Nuclear Association it states that mining uranium is only “...potentially hazardous due to uranium’s decay products, especially if it is high-grade ore.” and is not as dangerous as coal mining. Meaning that mining uranium is much safer than mining coal because mining uranium is only potentially dangerous whereas mining coal is dangerous.

       Nuclear energy is also one of the only energy sources (if not the only energy source) that can produce energy year around in almost every single place in the world, and still be very clean. Other alternative clean sources such as wind and solar cannot be used in every place on earth or be used year around like nuclear energy can. Not all places have enough wind to use wind energy or produce strong enough winds for the whole year, and not all places have enough sunlight to use solar energy. Also, another alternative energy source known as hydroelectric energy forces humans to alter the environment by putting something unnatural in wildlife. Nuclear energy, does not have these problems that other alternative sources do. Yet, we still do not expand our use of nuclear energy.

       Many people believe that we should not expand the use of nuclear energy because of two main reasons. Those reasons are that nuclear energy is unsafe and too expensive. The main big safety issue is when an accident occurs with nuclear energy, heat and pressure build up quickly, and the steam, along with the radioactive materials, may be released and explode into the air. Also nuclear energy costs millions upon billions of dollars to run which causes these power plants to go out of business and be forced to store this radioactive waste. These people that believe that are not wrong, but they are basing most of this information on the past. What they do not realize is that new technologies have been created that are much safer and produce much less waste than old power plants do. Also, even fossil fuels have accidents that can take a toll on us, such as a coal mine explosion or an oil spill. Nuclear energy may be expensive, but it will be worth it in the end as it will make climate change less of a problem. In the video titled “The fight to rethink (and reinvent) nuclear power” M. Sanjayan states that compared to the nuclear energy of the past, “...the nuclear energy of today is a whole different ball game.” Meaning that nuclear energy has changed a lot and has made many advancements that make nuclear energy a much better source of energy.

       Today’s nuclear energy is much more advanced than it was in the past. This new technology is safer and will produce much less waste than before. Now that safety of nuclear energy is much less of an issue, there is really no reason that its use should not be expanded. As mentioned before people are scared that another accident may happen. The reason nuclear accidents happen are because of nuclear meltdowns. “Nuclear meltdowns happen because water that is used to cool the radioactive fuel rods (that hold the uranium and produce the energy) can’t be pumped in. Usually do to something like a backup power failure. This fuel heats up rapidly, and since these reactors operate at such a high pressure, there can be explosions from all of this excess heat. You can think of it like a balloon popping and releasing the air inside, but in this case, radioactive air.” said by M. Sanjayan in “The fight to rethink (and reinvent) nuclear power” video. Dr. Leslie Dewan, the co-founder and CEO of the start-up company Transatomic Power, is trying to fix this nuclear meltdowns. Her nuclear reactors use atmospheric pressure to operate so their power plants do not need to be built the sameway as most plants do. The low pressure that the reactors get from the atmosphere almost ensures that the plant will not have that balloon popping problem. The fuel that was used in the past was a solid fuel that could only stay in the reactor for a certain amount of time before it broke itself down. Leslie’s company uses nuclear energy much more efficiently. Before with the solid fuel, you could only use/get about 4% of the energy that you could conceivably get from the uranium and the rest becomes waste. But new-generation reactors are using fuel much more efficiently. Her companies’ design uses fuel in a liquid form so that it can be used in the nuclear reactor for a longer period of time. Most of the advanced nuclear reactors can now use much more of the energy from the uranium. Meaning that plants are now leaving significantly less waste behind.

       Leslie is not the only person who has had the idea of using different forms of fuel, this idea has actually become a trend in the new technology of the field. “In the past 20 or 30 years we have developed different types of fuel that physically can not melt” said Per Peterson, a nuclear engineer at the University of Cal Berkeley, in the video, “The fight to rethink (and reinvent) nuclear power.” Meaning that problems we had with safety in the past with nuclear meltdowns will not serve as a problem anymore. His idea uses an entirely new type of fuel, known as a fuel pebble. It encases uranium in a golf ball size sphere. The material that encases the uranium is a very strong ceramic material that can withstand very high temperatures. These pebbles are designed to self contain themselves. If a power failure does occur, the pebbles will simply empty into a holding tank where they will cool down on their own. There will be no need for water or backup generators. Another piece of new technology is small modular reactors where the whole power plant gets held on the back of a flatbed truck. The truck gets parked and the reactor gets plugged in, when the fuel is used up it simply gets taken away as a unit to be reprocessed. These small reactors can power buildings and these three ideas are some of the new technologies that have been invented for nuclear energy. More importantly, this technology can be crucial in helping to combat climate change. Even though the new technology seems to solve the problems that the old nuclear energy of the past had, we are still not using it.

       The problem is that nuclear energy is not getting a second chance at a first impression. Nuclear energy has earned a reputation of having very dangerous accidents and now when you are trying to convince someone about something that has the word nuclear in it, it will be very difficult. This new technology is safe and much more advanced than before. We have reactors with new designs that are safer and fuels that make less waste. The world needs to figure out soon that nuclear energy is the good way to go. Nuclear power will help fix the worldwide climate change problem. In the article titled, “What’s Next for Nuclear - KQED QUEST” Gabriela Quiros states, “Despite the accident last year at a nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan (this article was written in 2012), here in the United States, some policymakers – including President Obama – are pushing to expand nuclear energy as a source of abundant carbon-free electricity. ‘To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple,’ said Obama in Feb. 2010, during a press conference at a Maryland nuclear plant.” Meaning that not only do I think we should go to nuclear energy, but many others including our former President Barack Obama think we should as well. 

       We should expand the use of nuclear energy. Not only will nuclear energy help us to reverse climate change, it is also very clean and good for the environment. And now due to new technology advancements, nuclear energy is much safer and efficient as well. The world is running out of time, we can not continue our current ways of using fossil fuels and polluting the earth. We need to combat climate change and nuclear energy will help us to do so.