The Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy is not worth the risk. In nuclear energy plants, energy is created differently than in power plants. While there are some advantages of, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of nuclear energy. Nuclear disasters that occurred in the past are evidence of this. To begin, the difference between how power plants create power and how nuclear plants create power is how the heat is created. In power plants, heat is created by burning fossil fuels. However, in nuclear plants heat is created by nuclear fission (the splitting of atoms). In a nuclear plant, the nuclear reactor creates heat that is used to make steam. The steam then turns a turbine connected to an electromagnet, called a generator. This process creates electricity.

The Chernobyl Accident in 1986 took place in Ukraine. A steam explosion and multiple fires that released at least 5% of the radioactive core into the atmosphere were a result of a flawed reactor design and poorly trained workers. One person was killed immediately and a second died in a hospital soon after from injuries. 237 people were originally diagnosed with Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), 134 of those cases were confirmed, and 28 of them died. Three months later, 30 more operators and firemen died. Also, at the time, another person died from a coronary thrombosis. 19 more died between 1987 and 2004 but their deaths cannot necessarily be tied to radiation exposure. More recently, in the most serious accident since Chernobyl, cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station failed shortly after an earthquake in Japan in 2011. 200,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Ranked as a Level 7, the highest ranking on the international scale created by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear disaster in Japan was just as severe as Chernobyl. A 7 on the scale defines a nuclear accident as having "widespread health and environmental effects" and the "external release of a significant fraction of the reactor core