tags: Politics, Science, Society
Nuclear Power: ‘No Thanks’ or ‘Yes Please’?
December 1st, 2005, by Rich.
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For me, the arguments against nuclear power-plants in their current form are overwhelming; the most significant of these being the collapse of the “nuclear is clean” argument (because of the apparent hidden CO2 costs of preparing the enriched uranium).
What’s important for the UK right now is that people engage in an informed debate about how we want to live our lives and the legacy we aspire to leave our decendants.
If, at this juncture, we (the collective British democratic consciousness) opt to create more nuclear plants and they turn out to be global polluters, then several hundred years from now everything else that we stand for will appear irrelevant because our legacy will be an uninhabitable planet. We cannot even hide behind the ignorance of those who went before us, because thanks to the World Wide Web the information that is available to the general public is now infinitely richer - more is known, more is understood and with this increase in knowledge comes a greater collective social responsibility.
I’m certainly not saying Nuclear Power is entirely bad, it’s just that there are too many negatives associated with it at present for it to be a viable global option. Of course, if nuclear power is the wrong answer, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is an obvious right answer that doesn’t have it’s problems or detractors.
So, debate is good, and debate now, whilst there is not a power crisis (unlike North America) is especially good, because we can take the time to consider and hopefully opt for, a fundamental change in the way we generate, share and use our power.
I’ll be wearing the yellow badge.
Update
A few people have asked if high resolution badge images are available for print purposes. Please contact the copyright holder OOA Fonden, who’s task is to make the logo available for use by the antinuclear movement world wide and to protect the integrity of the logo.
March 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
The thought that my brother in law put in my mind, which I have to agree with is that the uranium causes most of the pollution and if they didn’t use it in the Power Stations it would still pollute our air but not help us in anyway. Instead we produce a tiny bit more pollution using it but why waste perfectly good resources?? Everyone not wasting, wood or plastic…why waste perfectly uranium, that whether or not we use it will still pollute??!!
April 11th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
do you have any more good things on nuclear power
April 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Another good thing on nuclear power is that we use it for good and is a lot cheaper than using other energy sources!! Another big one for me is that Nuclear power and us produce a lot less emissions than natural things do….so why should we have to stop Nuclear Power when we are not creating huge amounts of pollution??!!
May 20th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Nuclear power is a great way to save the Earth and decrease the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. Although nuclear energy creates radioactive waste that our country doesn’t know what to do with my evidence will prove that it would be a good resource for the future that will preserve the environment. It is a much better energy source than oil or any other fossil fuel burned to create energy. nuclear energy is also 10 million times more useful than oil.
Nuclear energy cuts America’s demand for oil by 300 million barrels each year by reducing our dependence on other countries for oil. This also means that if our country goes to war with our oil supplier that we won’t be cut off from our energy supply. Our country wont lose it’s energy sources. We’ll have something to back up on or use in case of an emergency. Since 1973 when we started using nuclear fuel Americans have saved over 44 billion dollars. Nuclear energy supplies the world with 17% of it’s energy and that number will increase in the years to come.
Nuclear energy doesn’t pollute the earth. Nuclear energy plants reduce electric utility emissions of greenhouse gases by 20 percent, or 128 trillion tons a year. Nuclear energy can be used for a thousand more years. This is because our supply of uranium will last for another thousand years.That’s a long time. The energy created by nuclear fission also reduces electric utility emissions of greenhouse gases by 20 percent, or 128 trillion tons per year.
Nuclear energy powers new industrial technologies that will boost our Gross National Product to improve our global competition. The Gross National Product is the total dollar value of all final goods and services produced during a particular period of time. It will also cut the trade deficit, because it will reduce the amount of money lost in the oil trade.
October 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Jasmine, I have to disagree with the fact that nuclear power reduces our emissions, it does pollute but we will keep on using it because a) it is a cheap energy source and b) the uranium is already there and will pollute anyway. Whether it reduces the amount of oil needed or not it does pollute, just because it does something good does not cancel out the pollution factor. However as the uranium would pollute anyway I say carry on using it but start preparing for when it runs out, start building alternative methods so that we can be truly prepared for the future.