grace koh's List: english

• Is nuclear power the best way to meet the ever-increasing energy needs of the  planet, or do alternative energy sources provide a viable alternative?

• • There are now some 435 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 30  countries, with 370,000 MWe of total capacity.  
  • They supply 16% of the world's electricity, as base-load power, and their  efficiency is increasing.  
  • 56 countries operate a total of 284 research reactors reactors and a  further 220 reactors power ships and submarines. 
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• The majority of the world's electricity is currently produced via fossil fuels.  These are a finite resource and will run out shortly. Current (2005) high oil  prices reflect both rapidly rising demand for energy across the globe, and the  limited supply of fossil fuels to meet this need. Although estimates are very  variable as to exactly how long fossil fuels will last it is possible that oil  will be exhausted within 50 years and coal within 25 years.
• many senses nuclear energy is clean. It does not produce gaseous emissions such  as greenhouse gases, which are harmful either to the population or to the  environment. It is true that it does produce radioactive waste. Since this is in  solid form it can be dealt with much more easily and stored away from centres of  population. The damage caused to the environment and populations due to the  burning of fossil fuels is far in excess of the damage done to the environment  due to the nuclear industry including even the Chernobyl catastrophe. In this  sense nuclear energy is very much preferable to the burning of fossil fuels at  the moment. Furthermore, as new technology becomes available to allow the more  efficient use of nuclear fuel, less nuclear waste will be produced. (A recent  example is the development of the fast breeder reactor, which uses fuel much  more efficiently.) However, this trend will only continue with investment.  Judging from the pace of development of nuclear technology since its inception  it is fair to say that with more investment nuclear energy will become an even  more desirable source of energy with many of its current drawbacks curtailed.  The high price of oil at present looks set to continue, and makes the economic  case for investment in nuclear power even more attractive.

  • pros of nuclear energy. clean and produces greenhouse gaasses
• Firstly, it is expensive and relatively inefficient. The cost of building  reactors is enormous and the price of subsequently decommissioning them also  huge. Without massive government subsidy the nuclear industry cannot make money  and building new plants is uneconomic compared to other methods of power  generation.
  

  • nuclear energy cons
• Then there is also the problem of waste. Nuclear waste can remain radioactive  for thousands of years. It must be stored for all this time away from water into  which it can dissolve and far from any tectonic activity. This is virtually  impossible and there are serious concerns over the state of waste discarded even  a few decades ago.

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• Renewable energy effectively uses natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and  geothermal heat, which may be naturally  replenished. Renewable energy technologies range from solar power, wind power, hydroelectricity/micro hydro, biomass and biofuels for transportation