Advantages and Disadvantages of Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is seen as a terrible thing that can only harm the planet, but it isn’t for many reasons. People argue natural sources of energy such as hydroelectric power, wind power, and solar energy are better, but they aren’t the greatest option. I believe for many reasons that nuclear power is the better solution of the two, for numerous reasons.
Nuclear power is great, you can take minuscule amounts of material, such as uranium, and turn it into over 8000 times the amount of energy the same amount of coal would produce. Nuclear power has its own problems, if not properly disposed of, it can cause unwanted radiation to harm Earth and its ecosystem. This can be completely nullified if you consider the recent advancements to the field, scientists have learned how to take the nuclear waste and recycle it into more power. Even more recently scientists have found an abundant and safer alternative to uranium. Thorium is an abundant, safe, and less wasteful alternative. The only downside to using thorium is that it can be highly expensive to start up. Besides that initial cost, the positives outweigh any possible negatives. The waste taken from thorium, also like uranium, can be recycled in order to produce more energy. The money saved from using powerful sources of energy can be put back into facilities where unusable waste can be stored.
Naturally, renewable sources of power such as hydro power, wind power, and solar power are great for the environment. They have the lowest carbon dioxide output, meaning that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere won’t be an issue anymore. Carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere causes global warming. During the production of the facilities required to process the energy types, renewable sources produce less carbon dioxide during this stage as well. When using windmills you can construct other devices or constructions under them. When windmills are used, you can place farms around them as an example. Natural power is an option, but it isn’t the best option.
All of these benefits are great for the earth, but these sources of energy have their own negatives. To get the same amount of energy nuclear power achieves, we would need a lot of lands dedicated just to these facilities. Millions of birds get killed by human-made constructions. Killing ecosystems to make room for unnecessary amounts of energy plants is irresponsible on our behalf. In a solar farm named Ivanpah, they had to kill hundreds of threatened species of turtle in order to create this solar farm. Why waste space wild animals could use for their homes? We do not have the right to decide whether their lives are less important than a solar plant. A single nuclear plant can produce the same amount of energy as 4 renewable plants working at the same time.
