Nuclear Power Is Necessary

Nuclear Power Is Necessary

In the year 2078, Jimmy was in shock when it was announced on TV that the world had officially run out of fossil fuels. Due to the decisions made about 80 years ago, Jimmy realized that he and his family would have to make their own energy. If people had left open and made more nuclear power plants, the world would have continued to run without having to be afraid of losing its energy sources. Now, the technology that had required large amounts of energy, such as Jimmy's computer, would be worthless. Poor Jimmy's world had been turned on its ear; the world was in a state of mass hysteria and people were running around in crisis mode. Jimmy feared that nobody was capable of building the nuclear power plants due to the lack of energy because not only were fossil fuels gone, the alternative power sources produced so little energy as to be negligible. Jimmy hoped that somehow the crisis would be weathered but regretted that things had been allowed to slip as badly as they had. However, things do not have to go this way; this energy crisis can be averted. Nuclear energy is what will allow the people of the world to continue to use massive amounts of energy.

The majority of the world's electricity is currently produced via fossil fuels. These are a finite resource and will run out shortly. Although estimates are spread across a wide time period as to exactly how long fossil fuels will last, it is possible that oil will be exhausted within 60 years and coal within 30 years. It follows that it is necessary to find a new source of energy. The world must therefore start to convert to nuclear energy now, so there is not a major crisis when fossil fuels do run out, and invest in nuclear energy for the future.

In many senses nuclear energy is clean. It does not produce emissions such as greenhouse gases, which are harmful either to the population or to the environment. It is unclean in that it does produce radioactive waste, but this is better to have than what burning fossil fuels produces. Since radioactive waste is in solid form it can be dealt with much more easily and stored away from centers of population. It could even be stored in space or on moons some time in the future. When radioactive waste was dumped into the ocean, that was a mistake due to lack of knowledge and we know better now. The damage caused to the environment and populations due to the burning of fossil fuels is far in excess of the damage done to the environment due to the nuclear industry, including any of the nuclear plant catastrophes. In this sense nuclear energy is quite preferable to the burning of fossil fuels. Furthermore, as new technology becomes available to allow the more efficient use of nuclear fuel, less nuclear waste will be produced. A recent example that was in the news is the development of the fast breeder reactor, which uses fuel much more efficiently. However, this increase in development will only continue with investment. Judging from the pace of development of nuclear technology since its start, it is a good bet that with more investment nuclear energy will become an even more desirable source of energy with many of its current drawbacks a thing of the past.

It is very pertinent to look at the alternatives to nuclear energy when choosing in what form of energy to invest. For these reasons, diminishing supply and environmental damage, fossil fuels can be ruled out immediately. Enormous problems can be seen with every form of alternative energy. The most efficient source of renewable energy has been hydroelectric power. However, this usually creates more problems than it solves. Building a large dam means that it will flood an enormous region behind the dam, this in turn can displace tens of thousands of people. There are also enormous ecological costs to dam building. An excellent example is the Aswan dam in Egypt along the Nile, which some people may recognize from history class. Not only did thousands loose their homes but the yearly inundation of the Nile, which fertilized the surrounding land for thousands of years, stopped. The subsequent silting up of the river destroyed much wildlife. Solar energy has never lived up to expectations since it is hugely inefficient. A solar panel the size of Europe would