Nuclear Technology
There has always been controversy of the issue of nuclear energy. Advocates claim that it is the best way to generate electricity while the opposition side stresses the potential hazards of nuclear crisis. The incident of radiation leakage at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan last year has even catalyzed the debate of whether all nuclear power plants should be shut down.
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Nuclear Technology—- a godsend or a plague
With limited resources on our planet, energy issue has long been the centre of debate amongst politicians, scientists, environmentalists and even the most ordinary residents on Earth. Not long ago, a kind of clean and highly efficient energy source came to our aid to help iron out the energy crisis. But things do not come at no cost. Risks of leakage are too obvious to be ignored. So what is this energy? It is nuclear energy.
Nuclear energy, as its name implies, is energy from radioactive nuclei, involving no burning of fuels, which give rises to the most convincing advantage of this method of generating electricity. To date, the most common and frequently used way of generating electricity is to burn fossil fuels, natural gas or oil, releasing considerable amount of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates and other air pollutants to the atmosphere. Not only do they pose a menace to human health, but some of them are also the major contributors of global warming, which is a desperate problem faced by mankind. Therefore, nuclear energy is just the perfect alternative ripe for our situation, for it produces none of the air pollutants aforementioned but a large amount of energy.
The capability of a small amount of nuclear source to generate a large amount of usable energy is one other advantage of nuclear energy over other energy sources. A single radioactive nuclide being split apart can release much nuclear energy, which makes nuclear power plants being able to generate multiples amount more than other ways of producing energy. Moreover, nuclear technology is also coming to sophistication over the years. The efficiency is enhanced and most of the energy produced in nuclear reactions can be converted to usable form of energy – electricity. Therefore, nuclear energy is de facto a rather magnetic source of energy.
Appealing as it is, there hide some potential hazards of nuclear energy which make it a two-edged knife.
Nuclear leakage is the cause of concerns among citizens whose countries have nuclear power plants built. Though it rarely occurs, every time when radioactive substances leak from the plant due to various reasons namely earthquake, tsunami, operational errors and the like, it sends a shiver down the spine of everyone in the world because the health risks posed by radioactive substances are influential. One can easily get cancer or cell mutation with a small dose to radiation. What is worse is that the leaked radiation can proliferate through wind current and sea current to every corner of the globe, putting all people in risks of being the victims of radiation-related illnesses. Critics of nuclear power have long been placing much emphasis on this risk, which makes many countries hesitate to develop this technology.
Nuclear energy is also by no means pollution—free to the environment. Ostensibly, it does not contribute to our pollution and can hopefully help to alleviate global warming if it is to replace fossil fuels. Lamentably, the nuclear wastes, the side products from power plants, may also harm the environment if they are not stored appropriately. The nuclear wastes would usually be stored in lead containers and buried under meters of soli or underground for natural decay. But the problem is that natural decay may take hundreds of years, if not a thousand years to complete, during which the risk of leakage of wastes is unpredictable. If so, the harmful effect is long lasting as the wastes pollute the environment for hundreds of years.
In fact, today, it is not worth the risk to use nuclear energy as the main source of energy. We still have many alternatives which are cleaner, reusable and more importantly, safer. The renewable energy like solar power, hydro power, wind power, to name but a few is hopefully the future and ray of hope of energy crisis. After all, nuclear energy is too dangerous to be used.