THE PROS AND CONS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY

 

In the world there are many energy sources, but I decided to talk about one of them, nuclear energy. In the last ten years  humans have been trying to save the planet, modifying  their lifestyle. For example, a solution is to produce electric and Hybrid cars to try to decrease the air pollution but this isn’t enough. Many energy sources produce CO2.  So scientists want to find an alternative type of energies that are not pollutant for the environment. 

Nuclear energy in my opinion is a particular case. It has many pros but cons convinced humans to consider this energy source as an issue. First of all, how does a nuclear power plant work?

In the nuclear reactor, the fuel, Uranium, is burned and it blanches the fission of nuclei of atoms and this produces a huge quantity of energy.

THE PROS

Carbon, petrol,  gas power plants, burning thousands of tons of fuel produce about 100MW energy. Nuclear power plants, burning a few tons of fuel produce over 1000MW energy.  This is one of the pros of nuclear energy.  Another advantage  is that it  doesn’t release CO2 or  other gases that can damage the earth. Nuclear energy uses Uranium and not oil, so countries that want to produce nuclear energy mustn’t depend on countries that drill for oil.

THE CONS

As I said nuclear doesn’t release CO2,  but it is pollutant in a different way. In fact nuclear power plants release radioactive wastes which are  very difficult to work off.

But the most important cons in my opinion is that if an accident happens, the consequences may be extremely disastrous. History itself has proven it true. Examples of nuclear disasters are Chernobyl in Ukraine  and Fukushima  in Japan, which happened after an earthquake in 2011 and  polluted the entire Pacific Ocean with dangerous radiations.

 

For this reasons nobody wants to live near a power plant of that kind.

I think that it is very positive for the world’s economy and I hope men will try to make it safer. Uranium isn’t a renewable source so scientists are at work to find  alternative renewable sources. I think that nuclear energy has to be  replaced by something that is as efficient as it is but for now we don’t know anything which is comparable.  Green energy is the future and I hope that we will find good alternatives to save our planet.

David, 4sc