By: Katherine Locke-Brubaker
Link: http://www.emagazine.com/magazine/nuclear-dilemmas?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EMagazineIssueFeed+%28E+Magazine+Print+Issue+Feed%29
Picture: This picture displays nuclear energy being transferred and readied to be put into a cooling pond where the nuclear rods are cooled until they're safe to be put in waste dumps and landfills.
Summary: Nuclear energy is actually an very unstable source of energy but is still be used daily. When the fuel is used and no longer is radio-active enough for energy-usage, then it is stored away into cooling ponds where the nuclear rods are cooled until safe. The problem is that when they're put into the ponds, they're still dangerously high in radioactivity and if they would happen to leak, then our health, homes, and everything we know will soon come to an end. Also, when in the ponds, the rods kill off all the aquatic life and pretty much everything else in or surrounding it, so clearly this is not a very healthy alternative in the first place. We can't seem to find a good place to store our nuclear rods after they're no longer usable because putting them in cooling ponds is killing off a lot of life, contaminating our water, making people sick, and giving off high amounts of radioactivity. The only real way to prevent all of this from happening, is to just stop nuclear energy as an energy alternative, but we all know that the government would still use use it under the table and there would always be a struggle for it, so clearly that's out of the question. It's making it safer and healthier that we have to focus on because the way we're doing it now, we're just killing off ourselves.
Opinion: I can totally agree with what this article has to say, our intense levels of nuclear energy usage isn't just killing our earth by being used in the first place, but after it's used in our local waterways and ponds. Again, what if there were to be a leakage or natural disaster that would knock down one of the towers or wash the rods up onto the land, we'd die in a matter of years. Not only would this affect u either, our surrounding wildlife and aquatic life would suffer a great deal as well, for they can't really leave the ocean or their jungles and forests. All of this, is actually what just happened in Japan when a massive Tsunami hit Japan and caused one of the nuclear cooling plants to fail. The rods overheated and soon, then, exploded, releasing TONS of highly toxic radiation. Everyone who stays in Japan will soon die from the over-exposure,along with many illnesses and mutations they acquired from the waste. It was such a big leakage that in fact, the nuclear radiation is now spreading throughout the world and has contaminated almost all the life in the ocean near Japan. This wan't even the biggest cooling systems they have either, so if you think this is a tragedy, let's just keep using nuclear energy and see what else we can kill. WE need to stop everything we're doing with nuclear energy even if it means stop using that kind of energy altogether, because everything is somehow being harmed by it. We need to stop it before it gets even worse than it is now.
Questions:
- What are some alternatives to using nuclear energy?
- What else could happen in the future if we don't change the way we're dealing with nuclear energy?
- What impact will the recent nuclear explosion have on your life and the families around you?
Of course the obvious alternative energy source to nuclear energy would be fossil fuels, but there are also some cleaner alternative energy sources. Some of the alternative sources could include hydroelectric, wind turbines, soloar panels, or geothermal.I think nuclear energy is a fairly good source of energy but we can improve it by maing it produce less pollution and waste.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, Nuclear power plants should be cooling their rods in MANMADE cooling ponds! i am pretty sure that the power plants make their own coolig ponds and they can control the aquatic life so its not dying off. we should not stress the issue of killing off life in the ponds because they are controlled.
I was unhappy with this article and the opinion because it did not explain or bring across BOTH sides of the story.
This article reminds me of the time i past a nuclear power plant. My mother explained to me that the plant wass always providing electricity and i was fascinated by the way this was done. i approve of nuclear power plants even though they may not be the best source of energy.
Of course the obvious alternative energy source to nuclear energy would be fossil fuels, but there are also some cleaner alternative energy sources. Some of the alternative sources could include hydroelectric, wind turbines, soloar panels, or geothermal.I think nuclear energy is a fairly good source of energy but we can improve it by maing it produce less pollution and waste.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, Nuclear power plants should be cooling their rods in MANMADE cooling ponds! i am pretty sure that the power plants make their own coolig ponds and they can control the aquatic life so its not dying off. we should not stress the issue of killing off life in the ponds because they are controlled.
I was unhappy with this article and the opinion because it did not explain or bring across BOTH sides of the story.
This article reminds me of the time i past a nuclear power plant. My mother explained to me that the plant wass always providing electricity and i was fascinated by the way this was done. i approve of nuclear power plants even though they may not be the best source of energy.
This both stunned and scared me. I had no idea that we even really used nuclear energy until recently, and I didn't know that they put them into ponds. I fear that people don't care enough to put our health into consideration and find different energy sources.
ReplyDeleteIn the future if we do not stop this from happening, we could very well lose a lot of vegitaions and forests and water. The energy could leak into the soil and then contaminate the food from farmers as well as kill the trees and plants. People would have to evacuate the places with nuclear energy and then once there are no more places to go..... the human race could become extinct due to our own selfish need to have this nuclear power.
Radioactivity in our streams and ponds is abviously not a good thing. Radioactivity is very dangerous and can cause radiation poisoning. If there were to be a leakage, everyone in our environment would suffer including the land, marine life, and us humans. I remember talking about nuclear bombs back in middle school and how radioactively dangerous it is. The same radioactivity in the rods are found in nuclear bombs and that can guarantee our environment being destroyed. Some alternatives for energy instead of using nuclear energy is to use solar panels, wind turbines, and use water to power generators in power dams.
ReplyDeleteI feel like sometimes, we are just too blind. Considering it seems that nuclear energy being unstable source of energy is pretty much common knowledge and the fact is out there, we should obviously switch. And the people who are in charge of the companies of nuclear energy should, if they have not already realized on their own, realize this fact and initiate some action of some sort! Having people on the outside tell you something can open your eyes. Just like how sometimes I have trouble figuring or understanding something until someone says it to me and then a light bulb just goes off in my head. If we are going to continue to use nuclear energy, we should at least find a way to take care and dispose of the rods without risks of releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere. And what about those people in Japan and the terrible break down of power plants? I heard about the release of those nuclear toxins and was so scared for them!
ReplyDelete"What are some alternatives to using nuclear energy?"
Response: An alternative would be solar energy or wind power. I think we focus too much on other non-renewable and negative impacting resources as sources of energy and do not focus on how these types of alternative sources can help way more. To be honest, ever since solar and wind power were created, I would have thought we would have grown out of using nuclear energy or any of those not-so-great energy sources.