Article 5 “Climate Change is Shifting State Views on Nuclear Power”
Citation: Brown , A. (2022, June 15). Climate change is shifting state views on nuclear powerA. The Pew Charitable Trusts. Retrieved August 3, 2022, from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/06/15/climate-change-is-shifting-state-views-on-nuclear-power
Summary:
This article talks about the push for Nuclear Power and continuing to keep older nuclear power plants running in order to have a stopgap for renewable energy, because it takes more time and resources to create renewable energy as opposed to the nuclear power grid. The article then quotes several different politicians’ views on nuclear energy and how a majority of them believe that nuclear energy is the lesser of two evils. They then go on to talk about how people are incredibly fearful of nuclear energy, and how that is unjustified.
Relevance:
This article is relevant to environmental science as it discusses the uses of nuclear power in order to slow down progression of climate change as a “stop gap” while there’s a further transition towards renewable energy. It also talks about how some groups are against nuclear reactors because of the waste they cause and claims that they slow down implementation of renewable energy. I think these people are dumb.
I disagree with you. Although nuclear power can slow climate change and increase renewable energy, people have a reason to be afraid of it. When these power plants fail, it can cause a devastating event, like the one at Chernobyl. I wonder, how much waste nuclear power plants actually produce when they run correctly?
Thank you for commenting. The reason people are fearful of nuclear power is because when there is meltdowns, it is very, very bad. The reason the Chernobyl disaster even occurred in the first place is because the Soviet Union had severe design flaw in their reactors, such as the tips of their rods being Graphite, which is an accelerant, having absolutely no containment building, and not using properly enriched uranium, in order to save money. Frankly, it’s a miracle the plant didn’t explode earlier. Events like Fukushima were also primarily caused by moronic engineering, such as the plant A: being built in a Tsunami zone, and B: the backup generators be built under sea level, in order to prevent the plant from reaching critical mass if a tsunami knocks out the primary generators. This combined with media hysteria over these few examples of poor engineering and the association of nuclear power with nuclear weapons has led to global fear of nuclear power when in reality, it is one of the safest ways to generate power until a full switch to renewables. There is a lot less waste produced then from coal plants or natural gas and there is Yucca Mountain to dispose of the rest, which has more then enough capacity for hundreds of years