The Future of Energy is Nuclear

An item of mass destruction is our way to 0 emissions and a prosperous life of energy usage.  When you hear the term, “Nuclear”, you’d normally think of things like; Death, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Tsar Bomb, Fat man, Little Boy, Manhattan Project, The Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis.  Nuclear energy gets a bad reputation due to its history of being used for war to end wars or to threaten mass genocide by using these tools of war.  However, nuclear energy has become a very sustainable industry to produce power in a controlled environment, and people need to understand this concept.  The book Brave New World shows a world that would be able to function without nuclear, an improbable and undesirable world, but a world nonetheless.  The book talks about how “Everyone belongs to everyone else” (Huxley 40) when in our society, nobody owes anyone anything.  Just like climate change, nobody owes anyone the prevention, but it’s a necessity for us to continue to survive.  In relation to the book to the world, people were trained to that sense of belonging to complete a task whilst in the real world people have the choice and social freedom to do what they want.  From the end of World War II, to The Cold War, to the present day, nuclear energy has become the leading industry of 0 emissions, safety, and the duration that this energy source lasts.  The question is why haven’t we switched to nuclear yet?  Sadly, most people consider nuclear energy an intrusion on their life, due to people being scared after hearing stories of Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3 Mile Island where reporters go from the neighboring communities and take word of people and communities claiming they’re getting cancer more than ever, and that’s enough to scare people.  Nuclear Energy has the ability to outperform all of the renewable energy sources, provide constant power through storms where solar can’t receive sunlight, or on windless days with wind turbines, and when there’s less power to be received from hydro-electricity.  Nuclear also outperforms these energy sources in its physics, how we can collect so much more energy from nuclear whereas renewables, with the example of solar only being able to harness around 46% of the available energy that those sources come in contact with.  Government has the means and funds to take part in the revolutionary energy source that would not only help lower emissions, but save the US population so much on energy costs.  

Renewable Energy is the leading cause of why we don’t switch to Nuclear Energy.  The people who created the name of renewable energy were those who wanted to sell the idea.  To start, renewable energy has been shown to be very toxic to the environment when you look at what happens to used batteries; “60,000 tons of lithium at the site could mean digging up as much as 20 to 30 million tons of earth, more than the annual amount of earth dug up to produce all coal output of all but seven or eight U.S. states” ( Komanoff).  The way to get lithium is way more complex than most people think.  You need much more time and labor to dig up areas of lithium as well as refining the dug up materials into just lithium.  To add, you also see problems within the renewable energy industry when it’s said that, “The industry standard lifespan is about 25 to 30 years” (Berg).  The lifespan of renewable energy resources is about ⅓ an average person’s lifespan.  Renewable energy doesn’t last incredibly long meaning that we would only temporarily be fixing the solution of energy and climate change (from nonrenewable sources), but then need to go back to mining and getting the resources needed to make these renewable sources.  With the lifespan usually being 25-30 years, mining for all these would be extremely costly; “Lithium production… would need to rise more than 2000%” (Mills).  Lithium has become a concern with renewable energy due to the sun not always being available, as well as wind not always being at a constant rate.  People see renewables as a constant flow of energy, when that’s not the case, as there’ll be storms covering solar panels.  Renewables need a place for stored energy for when these times hit, and while there isn’t the available source of energy, at least we’d have the excess energy to rely on.  Lastly, so many politicians take the side of renewable energy just because of the name and the short term research, like when Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez stated, “reinvest in the needs of the American people and move towards a future reliant on renewable energy not planet-destroying fossil fuels” (Ocasio-Cortez).  Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez makes her point clear about how renewable energy is the solution out of climate change and what is best for the American people.  The press conference only includes the congresswoman’s side of the debate, showing a lack of decision or rationality behind it, where she only wants to combat fossil fuels, except in a poorly researched manner.   All in all, renewable energy has been corrupting the movement for climate change with the aftermath as well as being pushed upon the people even with the poorly managed consequences. The push of renewable energy resources by politicians like Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, has had an effect on global organizations fighting climate change .

The Paris Climate Agreement is a factor of climate change that has been affecting the fight for Climate Change.  The problem with the Paris Climate Agreement is that any country that is pledged can make any agreement they want, sadly most won’t be checked to see how beneficial their contribution actually is.  For example, places have already been implementing parts of their share to the climate agreement, but haven’t lived up to their quotas when stated, “states will likely cut emissions by just 18% below 2005 levels by 2025.  In contrast, the United States under former President Barack Obama had promised cuts of between 26% and 28%.” ( Cornwall).  The US’s pledge to the Paris Climate Agreement had been predicted to not be able to carry through with their pledge due to the severity of the request.  The Paris Climate Agreement shows that it’s really only a guideline to record data of emissions and energy consumption, as well as a deficit of spending where we are funneling money in hopes to reach a goal whereas we still aren’t close to getting there.  In addition, the Paris Climate Agreement references the use of renewable resources on the second page when it states, “Acknowledging the need to promote universal access to sustainable energy in developing countries, in particular in Africa, through the enhanced deployment of renewable energy” (“Adoption Of The Paris Agreement”).  The Paris Climate Agreement focuses on the work of renewable energy sources. The leaders of the Paris Agreement have been so focused on the name of renewable energy that they’ve been throwing their money and services in the wrong direction.  To finish off, the Paris Agreement is really only heavily funded by the US whereas most other countries, specifically other developed countries, don’t come close in donations to the Paris Agreement when comparing the statements; “The U.S.  pledged to double its grant-based public finance for adaptation by 2020, implying an increase of more than $400 million in annual adaptation finance” compared to statements from places like Switzerland who state, “Switzerland has committed US$100 million to the Green Climate Fund, which will be disbursed in three tranches over three years (2015-2017)” (“Roadmap to US$100 Billion”).  The difference between most countries is overwhelmingly different due to how much the US Spends.   Most countries show concern for climate change, but then you see an unequal amount, rather inequitable amount of money as well coming from the US more than almost any other country.  The Paris Climate Agreement is a real problem, in the sense that it isn’t being used for the purpose it was meant for.

After all that was shown, with both renewable energy and the working of the Paris Agreement, it seems like all options are only going to lead to more price hikes in energy and a future where we can’t sustain a liveable climate.  That would be correct if it weren’t for nuclear energy.  First of all, nuclear has made many improvements like the Generation IV when stated, “design of a generation IV,...  make use of its store of depleted and reprocessed Uranium as well as Plutonium contained in irradiated MOX.27” (Crossland).  Generation IV reactors have been a new way of making use of the depleted uranium and radioactive waste that used to be an issue within power plants.  The lack of attention towards this topic is one of the main reasons that people still look down upon nuclear energy and nuclear power plants.  To add, nuclear energy has pushed over certain countries by it’s capabilities to produce so much energy that it provides for about 85% of France’s energy (Stossel).  France has been one of the leading countries to use nuclear energy as a main power source.  France’s work in the nuclear industry has created roughly 0 emissions as well as been able to provide more than enough power for the country.  In comparison to other countries, Germany, a fully renewable country compared to France, a nuclearized country, has a significant difference in costs when stated, “France’s nuclear energy spending was 60% of what Germany spent on renewables. France gets about 400 Terawatt hour per year from nuclear but Germany gets 226 Terawatt-hours each year” (Wang).  The cost of France’s energy is significantly lower as well as making nearly double the power in comparison to Germany.  This shows the power of nuclear energy in relation to cost, efficiency, and reliability.  Finally, the same article “The Global Price Tag” states that the cost of going 100% renewable is “$73 Trillion” (“The Global Price Tag…”).  73 Trillion is a price that no individual person has ever seen combined in relations to money and finances.  The leading country with the highest debt is the US which is around $28 trillion in  and that’s accumulated to that amount over the decades, and now solving this problem for the world to fix the energy problem would cost 3 times that debt.  Most countries wouldn’t be able to share that burden, in either an equal division of the cost across all nations or an equitized cost depending on the energy usage of a nation.  Overall, nuclear energy has been proven to be a more sustainable source of energy and a way safer option than most of the public believes.

In the eyes of most news sources and that of the people, people believe that if a nuclear power plant has a meltdown, that the people around the powerplant will be prone to diseases like cancer.  To start, Fukushima, a nuclear powerplant in Japan going into meltdown, had extensive research done by the National Cancer Center in which they stated, “For the age-standardized annual incidence by sex and cancer type in Fukushima and Tochigi, we did not detect any joinpoint in trend with statistical significance” (“Researchers from National Cancer Center…”).  National organizations have shown that there’s no correlation between cancer and nuclear power.  The fear that has been put into people is a leading factor is why people dislike nuclear energy, when it’s simply not the case.  News outlets regardless of agenda have been progressively showing more unreliable news and showing less data or reliable sources to back their headlines up.  In addition to that, there was the meltdown in the US, The 3 Mile Island Accident, where after 20+ years after the incident, it was published that, “Radiation emissions, as modeled mathematically, did not account for the observed increase” (“Cancer Rates after Three Mile Island…”).  From the US’s encounter with nuclear meltdown, there was no evidence that showed an increase in radiation.  After numerous tests, data being recorded, the majority of the population doesn’t see the safety that nuclear energy can provide.  Lastly, the American Nuclear Society discusses the shame that these accidents that really had no impact besides the media spotlight that was put on them; “I live in terror of the next accident” (ANS), a quote by Harvey Wasserman, an environmental activist that was interviewed within John Stossel’s short-video documentary.  Depicted from both the short-video documentary and ANS’s article, Harvey Wasserman is a tool to be used against the fight for nuclear, although having no credentials under anything scientific or relating to nuclear. Wasserman’s fight against nuclear power is so strong because he’s been advocating for over 30 years for nuclear to be ridden off, yet he’s also the same person writing the stories that people hear today. To add to this, he even mentioned this fact in the documentary when he talked about how he was one of the first reporters at 3 Mile Island and reported the community, where he focused on those who were diagnosed with cancer.

All in all, the world could use the energy that nuclear power can provide, which could be proven with the start of a large country like the US demonstrating its potential and it’s safety.  Yet through all this, the question at hand is why don’t we switch to nuclear if there’s so many benefits to outweigh the possible consequences that have been decimated over the past 70 years of nuclear development?  The reason that so many places refuse to use nuclear as an energy source is due to the grim history of what nuclear products have been designed for.  Now giving the public eye a list of consequences like cancer rates, the deadly history of nuclear bombs; nuclear power plant meltdowns with reporters swarming to get eyewitness accounts, and ignoring the cost of alternatives, it all adds up to scaring the public out of the industry’s innovation. Government gives us so much important information through textbooks and education, but forgetting the smallest details of certain parts can really push your mind to think less optimistically about topics like nuclear energy and climate change. The media does the same, where journalists are accounting for such a specific set of victims due to people correlating nuclear with cancer that it continues to set nuclear energy up for failure.

Works Cited

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