Nuclear Energy--Double-edged Sword

Nuclear Energy is the potential energy of the particles inside an atomic nucleus. The nuclear particles are bound together by the strong nuclear force. Everybody knows the Nuclear power is useful, but most of us didn't face the problems of Nuclear power plants until the Japanese Nuclear Crisis. Not only Japanese Nuclear Power plants have problem, but there are also about 14 power plants have safety problems. One of the researchers from University of Chicago says it costs about $800 million per plant. During the Great Recession, I don't think that's a good idea to construct the Nuclear Power plants.

 According to Hyong, Nuclear power plants provide about 17 percent of the world's electricity. Some countries depend more on nuclear power for electricity than others. In France, for instance, about 75 percent of the electricity is generated from nuclear power. There are more than 400 nuclear power plants around the world. Although the Nuclear power plants are useful, we still cannot skip the problems that Nuclear reactors have. Debra A. Miller says, "Just to the south, California's 4 Nuclear reactors prevent millions of tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere..." Carbon Dioxide is a factor to cause Global Warming. Therefore, we are using something to destroy our Earth and killing ourselves.


Picture from www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/


Nuclear power plants cause a lot of pollution released into air. To build a nuclear reactor, what you need is some mildly enriched uranium. U-235 is one of the few materials that can undergo4 induced fission. Raising and lowering the control rods allow operators to control the rate of the nuclear reaction. When an operator wants the uranium core to produce more heat, the rods are raised out of the uranium bundle. Well-constructed nuclear power plants have an important advantage when it comes to electrical power generation——they are extremely clean. Compared with a coal fired power plant, nuclear power plants are a dream come true from an environmental standpoint.

Unfortunately, there are significant problems with nuclear power plants. Mining and purifying uranium has not, historically, been a very clean process. Improperly functioning nuclear power plants can create big problems. The Chernobyl6 disaster is a good example. Spent fuel from nuclear power plants is toxic for centuries, and, as yet, there is no safe, permanent storage facility for it. According to Debra A. Miller, "Strontium-90, a radioactive pollutant now released only from Nuclear reactors, ends up in milk and bones, contributing to bone cancer and lenlcemia" (155).

I am more likely to care about the safety problems. According to a video called "Japanese Nuclear Crisis in-depth", with more states of emergency being declared at nuclear facilities in Japan, nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri says the risk of damage from meltdown is less than in disasters such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the largest accident in the world, and lots of people died. Right now, the many people are segregated because of the radiation in Japan, also the Japanese Government decided to kill the fish or any kinds of seafood in their sea area. By reading the history, I think we should face the safety problems.

After talking about the environmental issue and safety issue, I think my goal is the economic problems. According to Adams, "How do they against reliable, proven, jobs and the long-term regional economic development that Besnainou maintains Nuclear power promises the United State?" But in "The Real Cost of Nuclear Power", Grunewald is focusing on the finances of nuclear industries and costs related to the construction of nuclear power plants. He said, "Since 2008, proposed reactors have been quietly scrapped or suspended in at least nine states--not by safety concerns or hippie sit-ins but by financial realities.

Picture from uang-uang.com

Other projects have been delayed as cost estimates have tripled toward $10 billion a reactor, and ratings agencies have downgraded utilities with atomic ambitions. Most the capitalists and financiers do not like to invest in companies constructing nuclear power plants due to the high costs. Also as taxpayers, we don't want spend our money on the project. The Nuclear construction could make jobs and help our economy grow, but who can tell how much we would pay for accidents such as the Fukushima accident in Japan.

Nuclear Energy is a kind of useful and powerful energy, and it might help in economic growth and the world's development, but Nuclear Power has been becoming a risk to the environment, to us and to the economic system during recession.

TEPCO vs. Nuclear Crisis

The article discusses the efforts of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) to contain the radioactive leaks at its Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan. The plant operator expects it will take six to nine months to contain the radiation leaking from the complex since the cooling systems at the plant's six reactors were damaged by an earthquake-triggered tsunami that inundated Japan's Pacific coast on March 2011. TEPCO has unveiled a phased road map to bring the crisis under control. "The industry ministry said Friday that Tokyo Electric Power Co has made around 1,000 mistakes in relation to key information that the ministry has used for mandatory power-saving goals to be imposed on large-lot electricity users from July 1." Therefor, TEPCO should be responsible to the Japanese for the mistakes that made the catastrophe worse. There is information of TEPCO that I found out as following: The Tokyo Electric Power Company, also known as Toden , is an electric utility servicing Japan's Kantō region, Yamanashi Prefecture, and the eastern portion of Shizuoka Prefecture. This area includes Tokyo. Its headquarters are located in Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and international branch offices exist in Washington, D.C., and London. TEPCO is the fourth largest electric power company in the world and the largest to hail from Asia. The amount of electricity it sells annually is the same as the amount Italy uses in a year. Tepco has one-third of the Japanese electric market. Tepco is the largest of the 10 electric utilities in Japan.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/tepco-made-1000-information-errors-related-to-power-saving-goals

Japanese Nuclear Crisis indepth

This video explains how could a meltdown happen.It shows the moment of the Nuclear bomb and the power plant after the Tsunami in Fukushima, in Japan. In this video clip, we can clearly see a lot of people lost their homes and also many people were sepaerated because of the Nuclear Radiation. With more states of emergency being declared at nuclear facilities in Japan, nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri says the risk of damage from meltdown is less than in disasters such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDfAZhhqkCI&feature=player_embedded

Japanese Nuclear Meltdown

These two pictures show the meltdown of Japanese Nuclear Power Plants after the Tsunami and Earthquake in Fukushima.

http://www.onlineusanews.com/japan-nuclear-meltdown-12351.php

http://www.pakistaninewschannel.com/no-danger-for-philippines-from-japan%E2%80%99s-nuclear-meltdown-scientists.html



Chernobyl Nuclear accident

On 26 April 1986 at 01:23:40 a.m. (UTC+3) reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant located in the Soviet Union near Pripyat in Ukraine exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Nearly thirty to forty times more fallout was released than Hiroshima. The plume drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.
In the picture shows the boy was impacted by the radioation.


http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/04/meltdown_at_chernobyl_nuclear.php

The Real Cost of Nuclear Power

There are a lot of people worry on the economic problems for building nuclear power plants, because we are the taxpayers. In this article, Michael Grunewald is focusing on the finances of nuclear industries and costs related to the construction of nuclear power plants.He said "Since 2008, proposed reactors have been quietly scrapped or suspended in at least nine states--not by safety concerns or hippie sit-ins but by financial realities. Other projects have been delayed as cost estimates have tripled toward $10 billion a reactor, and ratings agencies have downgraded utilities with atomic ambitions." The capitalists and financiers do not like to invest in companies constructing nuclear power plants due to the high costs. It's noted the new nuclear power plants of countries rely on government financing of such projects. The nuclear companies could not obtain private financing for power plants. Also it points out the history of U.S. nuclear power and the nuclear crisis in Japan. According to this article, as a taxpayer, I also don't like to spend my money on the high cost plants and still be in dangerous. I am not saying new types of energy are not good, but at this point, we already have a lot of environmental problems and we are also in the Great Recession of our economy, so can government come up with some issues to balance the environment and economy.


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