Nuclear Energy- How it kills
‘The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. I think some of you might have guessed what I’m talking about- It is nuclear energy. It’s been a global topic nowadays everywhere. We’ve been hearing news about disasters that have been caused by nuclear plants and weapons and ongoing debates about them. But nobody really knows what they are, how they work and about its advantages and drawbacks.
First of all, what is nuclear energy? It is a massive, mature technology, which is around us for decades. It is one of the most used energy generating resource of the world. There are approximately 437 nuclear reactors in 31 countries of the world, although not every reactor produces electricity. So the next question is, how does this reactors work? - Uranium, a metal that we have heard about in the periodic table, becomes very hot when stable that evaporate water in seconds when dunked in a pool, which powers the turbines to generate electricity or some other form of power resources. It is said that one block of Uranium can light up a whole country overnight. That’s a lot of power through electricity, and so we can say that our future energy resources of the world are in secure hands of technology, or are they? How many of us know about its disadvantages?
There are many positive sides for Nuclear energy. They are cheap electricity resource, reliable, powerful and efficient, continuous energy supplying resource etc. On the other hand, nuclear reactors also have lots of negative sides too. Nuclear energy is one of the reasons for global warming, but not as much as coal mines. Every day, tons and tons of carbon dioxide are emitted in the air by the massive reactors. It is estimated that almost 2500 citizens in United States of America die due to the air pollution caused by the Nuclear reactors. In the case of nuclear disasters, we all have heard about the accidents in Fukushima on 2011, where when a Tsunami hit Japan, the radioactive materials had been released, which later ended up in an earthquake leading to the death of 16000 people in and around the reactor. I personally think that, usage of nuclear weapons is a curse against the god, the human family and the earth itself. Let’s just hope that such deathly disasters won’t be recorded in the future history of earth. But the risk of having such a devastating disaster is really really high.
Nuclear energy is a non-renewable energy source. Uranium is a rare metal that are not found in many countries. Most of the nations rely on other nations for constant supply. But as we said it is a non-renewable energy source and once all these uranium is extracted, nuclear power will be of no use. Then we have to rely on other resources like wind energy, solar energy etc.
So the next question that we have to face is: if its not nuclear energy, that what is it? If its not fuel or nuclear energy then what is the third change that we have for the future? – The answer for it is RENEWABLE ENERGY. Any naturally occurring, theoretically inexhaustible source of energy, as biomass, solar, tidal, wind, wave and hydro-electric power that is not derived from fossils or nuclear fuels, which will be replenished in the future are called renewable energy.
Some of the advantages that we gain from renewable energy are that it will never run out, it needs less cost of maintenance compared to nuclear plants, as it needs millions of dollars, it emit little or no waste and carbon dioxide, and most of all it also save spacing, as we only need a space for a poll to be held in the ground, while for a nuclear plant it needs