Nuclear Power as an Alternative Energy Source.
Because of the immense power that it can generate, many researchers believe that harnessing the power of the atom in fission reactions is the most significant alternative energy resource that we have.
Nuclear power plants are extremely “clean-burning,” and their efficiency is astounding. Nuclear power is produced at an efficiency of 80%, which means that the energy produced by the fission reactions is nearly equal to the energy used to produce the fission reactions in the first place.
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There isn’t a lot of waste material produced by nuclear fission, but there is some because there is no such thing as producing energy without also producing some waste. Environmentalists’ concerns about using nuclear power as an alternative energy source revolve around this waste, which is radioactive gases that must be contained.
Because the radiation from these gases lasts for such a long time, it can never be released once contained and stored. However, the volume of waste gas produced by nuclear power plants pales in comparison to the amount of NOx (nitrous oxide—that is, air pollution) caused by one day’s worth of Los Angeles rush-hour traffic. While radiation is by far the more lethal of the two waste materials, it is also by far the easier of the two to contain and store.
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Despite environmentalists’ concerns, nuclear power is an environmentally friendly alternative energy source, with a low risk of the contained radiation escaping. With a relatively low volume of waste produced, long-term storage and disposal solutions should be relatively easy to develop as technology advances.
When an atom splits, energy is released in the form of heat and light. Atomic power plants regulate fission reactions so that they do not produce the devastating explosions produced by atomic and hydrogen bombs.
There is no chance of an atomic power plant exploding like a nuclear bomb because the specialized conditions and pure Plutonium required to unleash the destructive force of an atomic bomb simply do not exist inside a nuclear power plant. The likelihood of a “meltdown” is extremely low.
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Although this latter event has occurred a couple of times, given that there are over 430 nuclear reactors spread across 33 nations and that nuclear reactors have been in use since the early 1950s, these are rare occurrences, and the events of this nature that have occurred were the fault of outdated materials that should have been properly maintained.
Indeed, if nuclear energy could become a more widely accepted form of alternative energy, there would be little doubt about its continued use. Currently, six states in America use nuclear power to meet more than half of their electrical energy needs, and the media is not filled with gruesome horror stories about power plants that are constantly failing.
