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The Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Power

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Why nuclear power should not be a part of the “green shift” of energy sources

There seems to be agreement amongst experts that today’s greatest global threat is climate change and the effects it will bring. In an attempt to ensure sustainable development and reduce the impacts of global warming, more than 150 world leaders have adopted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While several of these goals can be related to climate change, this paper will focus mainly on the 7th. This goal is to by 2030: “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 25% of global CO2 equivalence (CO2e) is caused by the energy production sector …show more content…

It also mentions that cleaner, more energy efficient energy is a target. To meet these goals, one of the first things to decide on is what sources of energy will be supported, researched, developed and subsidized. A sector that is keen to cover the future energy supply is the nuclear one. Nuclear power has by many been hailed as a non-polluting, clean energy source that belongs in the low-emission society of tomorrow. The main goal of this paper will be to investigate how environmentally friendly this technology really is and whether or not it belongs in the next generation of energy suppliers. The first part will give an explanation of how nuclear power is produced from cradle to grave and hidden costs and emissions along the way. The second part will look at the risks involved with the industry (decommissioning, waste disposal, longevity and risk of terrorism with impacts both in terms of CO2e and …show more content…

What happens inside the symbolic reactors seems a field for experts where it becomes hard to have an opinion without excessive inside-knowledge. While what happens inside a nuclear reactor is highly advanced, it is not incomprehensible. It is basically an advanced way of boiling water, using the steam to turn a turbine which creates electricity. The water is boiled with uranium rods being placed in water to reach its critical mass (where there is enough fissile material to sustain nuclear fission). Lots of heat is produced, which then boils the water. In itself, this process causes no emissions*. However, the reactors don’t build themselves, the uranium does not magically turn up at the doorstep of the reactors, neither does it magically disappear when in the form of nuclear waste. This part of the paper will build extensively on chapter 1 of the book “Nuclear Energy Is Not the Answer” by Dr. Helen Caldicott and estimations by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith. Much of the information about the nuclear cycle (the milling process in particular) is borrowed from Caldicott’s book and the numbers are from van Leeuwen and Smith amongst others. After looking at many sources and life-cycle estimates these were by far the most comprehensive available, as they included many factors overlooked in other

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Nuclear power is a vital tool in the war against climate change that is frequently scrutinized for its own drawbacks. The same people who wish for nuclear power to cease functioning are also green energy advocates who do not realize the advantages to nuclear power. One of the advantages to nuclear power is the superior amount of power it generates compared to any other method of producing energy in large quantities found to this day. Nuclear energy also does not release greenhouse gases so it is a much safer way to generate power than ancient carbon-ridden dinosaur juice being combusted. One reason nuclear power is a great source of energy is that it creates more energy than other sources of power.

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Abstract Energy is a resource on which our very society is built around. Energy affects every aspect of our daily lives and is absolutely vital in our survival in the modern world as well as the of the preservation of Earth itself. This research paper will explore nuclear power, our previous understanding what it was, what its effects means for society on both a national and global scale, but most importantly, why nuclear power is the solution to our problems. We must face the reality that we cannot depend on coal, gas and oil for our energy needs if we are to combat global warming. To replace fossil fuels, many energy technologies have been considered, but nuclear fission technology is the only developed energy source that is capable of sustaining

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Developments in technology provide many different innovations for our lives day by day and these developments make human beings’ life easier. The usage of atomic nucleus in order to generate electrical energy is one of the biggest developments and innovations in engineering field and science. This advancement changed the perspective of scientists and gave them another point of view about generating electrical energy by using a new and unusual way. Thereby, the usage of new technology with atomic nucleus in generating energy brought many debates and different questions along with it. This study claims that although it is a generally accepted fact that nuclear power plants and nuclear energy have some bad impacts on the nature and human beings as they can harm people, plants and animals, nuclear wastes and radiation leakage are dangerous, they have numerous beneficial effects like being a big energy resource and an important political prestige for a country and reducing the dependency on fossil fuels as well.

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