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Introduction
On 11th March 2011, there was a large earthquake happened in Fukushima Japan.
It was described as the greatest earthquake happened in the history of Japan. As the
earthquake has destroyed the homeland of many local citizens, the earthquake has
also caused a great tsunami which cuts of the power supply of nuclear plants. As the
cool down function of the nuclear plant have been disabled, the radioactive cores
immediately melt, which caused the leakage of high radiation (World Nuclear
Association, 2017). The accident has raised high awareness in the world about the
safety of using nuclear power as the majority supply of energy. This paper aims to
The first advantage of using nuclear energy is that it will produce less greenhouse
gases. As the uranium core will generate large amount of heat in the process of
nuclear fission to boil water for generation of electricity, the process will not release
greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane (Rinkesh, 2016). According to the
studies done by Nuclear Energy Institute, Nuclear energy facilities avoided 554
million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2016 across the U.S. (Nuclear Energy
Institute, 2017a). In this case, it is proved that nuclear power can generate electricity
The next advantage of using nuclear energy is due to its high efficiency. Between
all those renewable energy, nuclear energy can generate the most amount of
nuclear energy to supply at least one-quarter of their total electricity (Nuclear Energy
Institute, 2017b). Moreover, nuclear power can generate electricity more stable. As
some of the renewable energy resources like solar energy and wind power depend on
the weather, the supply of electricity from above ways is very unreliable. However,
nuclear power will not be affected by weather but the uranium core, which can ensure
Another advantage of using nuclear energy is that it costs less compare to other
energy resources. Like other renewable energy, the construction cost of the nuclear
plant is quite expensive. However, when the nuclear plant is ready to do its work,
firstly its maintenance fee is not expensive and the plant can run for a long period like
40-60 years. Nuclear plants are inherently more expensive to manufacture and also
have a much higher cost of capital than fossil-fuel power plants (Schultz, 2012).
Moreover, it only requires and little bit of uranium to generate large amount of
The first disadvantage is that the uranium core is very unstable. As nuclear power
relies on the nuclear fission of uranium core, the process will release a lot of high
radiation. Take the accident in Fukushima as example, the leakage of high radiation
will cause great damage to surrounding environment and human beings. In the
accident of the Chernobyl disaster, there are many people that got cancers due to
Fukushima and Chernobyl happened again and caused the malfunctioning of the
nuclear plant, it will cause huge damage to human race and the environment.
The next disadvantage is that there are currently no possible solutions in dealing
with nuclear waste. Although the nuclear plant can work for 40-60 years, the time of
its malfunctioning will still come at the end. At that time, how should human treat
those nuclear wastes? As there are no developed treatment yet, it is still not possible to
just bury the wastes like what we did to bury garbage. Irresponsible treatment of
nuclear waste will definitely cause great problem to humans and environment
(Greenpeace, 2016), and when we are not capable to deal with nuclear waste, it is the
war and terrorism. Although nuclear can be use as energy resources, it can be used for
making weapons. In the World War II, America had thrown a nuclear bomb on
Hiroshima Japan, which cause unrecoverable damage to Japan until now. Therefore,
many countries have signed the peace treaty together to ban any usage of nuclear
weapons. Of course, there are exceptions in the world. Countries like North Korea
have been claiming that they have developed advanced nuclear technology and will
use it on America (BBC, 2017). Not just about countries, extreme terrorists like ISIS
may gain access easily to nuclear reactors and use it for nuclear attack since there are
more than 40 countries have civil nuclear power plan (Greenpeace, 2007). To
conclude, common use of nuclear energy will lead to easy access to ingredients of
nuclear weapons.
Opinion
Based on the above pros and cons of nuclear power, in my opinion I believe
that the cons of using nuclear power outweighs the pros of it, because of the safety
problem of nuclear plants, the possibility of better energy resources and the problem
of nuclear threat.
The first reason for that is due to the safety problem of nuclear plants. After the
accident of Fukushima, actually the safety and reliability of the protection facilities is
not that persuasive anymore. Failure in handling high radioactive substance is very
dangerous and can be lethal to the environment and human. Therefore, the
development of nuclear energy should be slower down or even being stopped before
there are any perfect solutions for handling nuclear core in a safer way. Others may
argue that the Fukushima accident is not caused by natural hazards directly, the
tsunami hit the electricity supply which caused the cooling system malfunctioning.
Therefore, it is not equal to that the protection facilities are not safe. However, the
cooling system is an essential part of the nuclear plant as failure of cooling system
caused the Fukushima accident, which means that the protection system is not perfect.
Therefore, before the facilities are ensured as safe enough, the use of nuclear power
should be stopped.
The second reason for me to banning the use of nuclear power is the
possibilities of better energy resources. Although nuclear energy is very efficient and
substances and high construction costs. If that is the case, why not we also consider
other possibilities as well? Besides the more popular renewable energy like solar and
wind energy, there are other energy resources like hydropower, biofuel, tidal power
etc. It is bias and not necessary to just focus on the development of nuclear energy, so
that when there are more suitable energy resources discovered, nuclear energy should
The last reason for banning the use of nuclear power is due to the problem of
nuclear threat. At a time like now, the relationships between countries are very tensed
right now, partly is because of the nuclear threat caused by countries like North
Korea. It is safer to not keep developing nuclear energy at the moment. Some may
argue that the use of nuclear power is not same as having nuclear weapon. However,
there is one saying in Chinese “Neither adjust your shoe in a melon patch, nor your
hat under a plum tree.”, meaning that do not do any suspicious actions or things that
Conclusion
To conclude, the use of nuclear energy is a very heated topic due to its related
incidents happened throughout decades, like the famous Chernobyl accident and the
does generates large amount of energy compare to other renewable energy. However,
human cannot completely control the use of nuclear power which is very worrying.
There are people who even misuse nuclear power for military use. If human still
cannot control nuclear power in a safer way, it is better to abandon it and try on other
renewable energy. This time maybe is just Fukushima, but once nuclear plants are
spread all over the world, there can be not just one Fukushima and Chernobyl at that
time.
References
BBC. (2017). North Korea's nuclear programme: How advanced is it? Retrieved May
Greenpeace. (2016). End the Nuclear Age. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/
Statistics/Environment-Emissions-Prevented
Nuclear Energy Institute. (2017b). World Statistics. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from
https://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics
Rinkesh. (2016). Advantages of Nuclear Energy. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/advantages_nuclearenergy.php
Schultz, I. (2012). Basic Economics of Nuclear Power. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph241/schultz2/
World Nuclear Association. (2017). Fukushima Accident. Retrieved May 06, 2017,
from http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-
security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx