Persuasive Essay About Nuclear Power

Nuclear power is a small growing field of alternative energy but contains major issues ranging from infrastructure problems, nuclear waste, and radiation. Nuclear power is a clumped together with Wind, Solar, and Hydroelectric as an alternative energy but it gets the most slack for being the most dangerous form of alternative energy. In some degree, it’s true that nuclear power can potentially be dangerous but it’s generally pretty safe and the output of power is on par with other sources of energy right now. And it only can get better with the innovations of the future for nuclear power. Nuclear Power has been around for about 60+ years but how does it work? People today create nuclear power as a source of energy is through something called

U-235 first needs to be mined and enriched. U-235 makes up about 1% of all natural Uranium found on Earth while U-238 Makes up the majority of Uranium found. When natural Uranium is enriched, it is turned into a gas using high speed centrifuge tubes and the U-235 is sucked out of it. The U-235 is then turned back into a solid to be later used in a reactor or a bomb (Fox, “How is Uranium Enriched?”). The enriched U-235 is then taken to a nuclear power plant where it will be used as the main component to generate electricity. The U-235 is packed into a rod shape and placed in water. The radioactivity of the U-235 generates heat that heats up the water, causing steam to form. The steam will work its way and begin to drive a turbine, causing power to be generated from the turbine (Fox, “How is Uranium Enriched?”). The energy is then used to power your refrigerators and charge your

From the first reactor built as part of the Manhattan project, Chicago Pile-1, and according the Nuclear Energy Institute to the 438 nuclear power plants currently being operated today and 10.9% of world relies off it (Nuclear Energy Institute, “World Statistics”). After World War II ended, we began a shift to seeing the process of nuclear fission as not only a weapon, but as an energy source. The cost of using nuclear energy has not changed much compared to other forms of energy. A study ran by the World Nuclear Association ran a study between 1995 to 2012 to track costs of US electricity production costs showed that within that time, nuclear energy production costs have stayed at 2.40 cents/kWh, while coal is 3.27 cents, and gas is 3.40 cents (World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power Economics”). The cost to build a nuclear power plant varies but is quite expensive due to the sheer amount of raw resources needed to build it and high end technological to create an efficient plant and provide the workers with a safe working