Four years ago this month, James Lovelock upset a lot of his fans. Lovelock was revered in the green movement for developing the Gaia hypothesis, which links everything on earth to a dynamic, organic whole. Writing in the British newspaper The Independent, Lovelock stated in an op-ed: “We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear—the one safe, available energy source—now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.”
The above statement make me to ponder nuclear as a soure of energy. In US currently there is 104 nuclear plant. It is safe if we contain and handle it properly. The three mile island incident in 1979 and Chenobyl disaster in 1986 had caused panic to the people around the world. Due to that, there is no more development of nuclear power plant. However, in the united states 500 power plants using fossil fuel generated 7 billion tons of CO2. Besides contributing to global warming, their pollution has a serious health impact. Burning coal releases fine particulates that kill 24,000 Americans annually and cause hundreds of thousands of cases of lung and heart problems.
Energy is an issue for the world today. Both nuclear plant and fossil fuel plant contribute the damage to the earth. The earth is now at its maximum limit to contain green house gases. James Lovelock approach to switch to nuclear is a way to the future until cheaper renewable energy available.
I once read that hydrogen is the cleanest and safest alternative to fossil.
ReplyDeleteThat's right Sindy, but it doesn't cost effective.
ReplyDeleteThough nuclear power generation does not emit high amount of CO2, the generation of green house gasses are low, a readily available technology and able to generate high amount of electricall enegy,
ReplyDeleteThus it has many disadvantages:-
Radiactive waste problem is extremely dangerous;despite high safety and security standards, risk of accidents are relatively high and its effects are for generations;
not forgetting the source of nuclear energy, uranium is running out of stock.Rather than using dangerous nuclear energy, a save renewable energy consisting of wind, solar and biogas are viable solutions and it enhances sustainability. Remembering our 1st lesson in class, knowing uranium is only available in limited quantities, due to its usage it wont be available anymore in the future and this contradict with the principle of sustainability.
Nuclear energy seemed like the perfect wave of the future, however one of the main disadvantages of nuclear energy is that nuclear explosions produce radiation, this radiation can cause cancer, sever sickness and most of the time death and major horrible mutations can be triggered for generation after they were exposed to nuclear radiation.
ReplyDeleteA possible type of reactor disaster is known as a meltdown - the fission reaction of an atom goes out of control, which leads to a nuclear explosion releasing great amounts of radiation. The following are some examples of meltdowns that have happened through history:
1) In 1979, at the Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the cooling system of a nuclear reactor failed. Radiation escaped, forcing tens of thousands of people to run away. Fortunately the problem was solved minutes before a total meltdown would have occurred, and there were no deaths.
2) In 1986, a much worse disaster hit Russia's Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In this incident, a large amount of radiation escaped from the reactor. Hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to the radiation. IAEA and WHO studies revealed that there were 56 direct deaths off the explosion and about 600000 deaths due to radiation exposure.
3) In 1957, nuclear wastes buried at a dump site in Russia’s Ural Mountains, near Moscow, mysteriously exploded. This caused the death of dozens of people. Nuclear reactors only last for about forty to fifty years.
4) The five incidents between 1955-1979 in Sellafield (UK), the Tokaimura nuclear accident in Japan (1990) and the Saint Laurent Nuclear Power Plant accident in France (1980) are all categorized as a scale 4 (Nuclear Power Plant Accident with Local Consequences).
(Source: http://gvctemp18.virtualclassroom.org/Nenergy/adva.htm)
(Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/nuclear-power-plant-disasters.html)