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Jacob Song
Debate Paper #2
Should the US Revitalize Nuclear?
October 13, 2014
Word Count
Nuclear Energy
Everything began in 1789, when Martin Klaproth, a German chemist, discovered Uranium. This
discovery would eventually lead to the emergence of nuclear energy. However, it was only until 1940
when nuclear fission truly took the world spotlight. During this time, the United States developed two
concepts in which uranium could be used as a bomb or as an energy source. The former would
eventually lead to the nuclear bomb, which although is important in changing the world is not the main
topic of discussion in this paper. The latter ushered in the era of nuclear power plants. Advertised as
environmentally friendly due to its zero net greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear energy seemed like the
perfect energy source because it created a tremendous amount of heat. As a result, the United States
created the first nuclear reactor, Experimental Breeder, in Idaho which started up in the December of
1951. This milestone led to a chain reaction of new commercial reactors which would take the United
States by storm. However, events such as the Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima Daichi nuclear
disaster led to United States rapid disinterest in nuclear power. With the emergence of nuclear fusion as
a possible path to infinite energy, as shown through studies done by ITER, many parties question
whether now is the time to revitalize nuclear energy. These stakeholders include energy consumers,
nuclear power plant workers, energy companies, all the other energy workers, people who live near the
nuclear power plants, and the US government. In order for the debate to arrive to some sort of
conclusion, there are many topics that must be discussed as well. These include waste management of
used uranium, “dirty bombs”, nuclear fusion, nuclear disaster probability, and its comparison to other
energy sources. All in all, the opinions regarding the revitalization of nuclear energy will be further
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explored through the World Nuclear Association’s (WNA) pro-nuclear stance, Nuclear Information and
Resource Service’s (NIRS) anti-nuclear stance, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor’s
(ITER) vision of nuclear fusion.
Overall WNA’s website argues nuclear energy as the most viable energy source due to its
reliability, close to zero green gas emissions, and its high net energy production. WNA juxtaposes all
other energy sources with nuclear energy in order to portray its “superiority” in regards to all the above
mentioned areas. The website describes how each other energy source would at some point become
unavailable due to foreign dependence, affecting fossil, or natural weather patterns, affecting
renewables; whereas nuclear “Nuclear power plants can run for many months without interruption,
providing reliable and predictable supplies of electricity”( "WNA in Japanese:." ). Furthermore, the
websites uses a graph to illustrate how if fossil fuels were used to make the amount of energy produced
by nuclear in 2011 that even the least dirty fuel (natural gas) would create “1183 million tonnes CO2”(
"WNA in Japanese:." ) more than nuclear. Lastly, WNA compares the energy conversion between a
uranium fuel pellet and other fossil fuels. The website states that, “A single uranium fuel pellet contains
as much energy as 480 cubic metres of natural gas, 807 kilos of coal or 149 gallons of oil”( "WNA in
Japanese:." ). All in all WNA does a good job in portraying how nuclear as seemingly faultless by
highlighting the advantages it has over other energy sources and by disregarding all its negatives making
it seem as though there is none.
Although seemingly faultless, this article leads me to question nuclear energy’s superiority due
to its intentional exclusion of vastly important information and its dangerous assumptions. First of all,
when the website describes each of the other energy sources, describing their benefits and weaknesses,
the website fails to say anything bad about nuclear and only highlights its benefits. Added to this when
the article states that “While no such facilities for high-level wastes currently operate, their feasibility
has been demonstrated and there are several countries now in the process of designing and
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constructing them”(citation). This statement arouses a deep level of concern in me because this
statement declares that there are currently no facilities to hold high level waste so where in the world is
the high waste being treated right now. Nowhere in the article does it say how they are dealing with the
high waste. Although they may say they are keeping this waste underwater “indefinitely” or just storing
the nuclear waste in metal containers it seems that they are avoiding the problem and clearly just
covering it up by turning the spotlight only to nuclear’s advantages. Another problem I have with this
article is the dangerous assumption regarding radiation. The assumption is derived from this statement:
“We all experience radiation from natural sources every day.” This statement gives off the feeling that
radiation is “safe”. When in fact it isn’t. Of course a little radiation does not hurt but a prolonged
exposure to radiation is unsafe. I understand WNA did not mean it this way because they address the
issue of radiation and health in another article but statements like this one can be very misleading.
On the other hand, NIRS advocates a complete nuclear free America through its emphasis on
problems with nuclear waste disposal and health problems associated with nuclear energy. NIRS
describes how “nuclear reactors have operated in this country for more than 50 years, and yet there is
no “final destination” for permanent isolation of reactor waste”( "Nuclear Information and Resource
Service - NIRS." ). They then further discuss this problem by describing the countless failed attempts at
storing this waste such as the Yucca Mountain site and underground tunnels attempt. NIRS also
discusses how radiation policy is too generous to nuclear companies that it is unsafe for the health of
children. NIRS describe how the maximum amount of nuclear radiation depends on if the radiation is
unsafe for the “standard man”( "Nuclear Information and Resource Service - NIRS." ). NIRS describes this
situation as the “tyranny of the standard man” because it does not take into account at all children.
They then go on describing how children are more susceptible radiation exposure because they are
outside more often than adults. Thus they say that the “standard man” is not a valid measure because
children are also affected more by smaller amounts of radiation than adults are.
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This website gives of the feeling that its sole purpose is to stop nuclear energy at all costs
because then nuclear energy will ruin the world. For instance, the only main argument is that nuclear
energy can cause dramatic disasters both environmentally and health. What is bad about this is that the
evidence provided is not substantial enough to call nuclear as an invalid option. The reason for this is
because what is assuming that a nuclear disaster is definitely going to happen again if we continue to
make more nuclear power plants. They have not once cited the probability of a nuclear problem
happening and the probability of the safeguards failing to stop such a problem. All this rhetoric is
consistent with the “let’s find anything bad about nuclear and focus as much media as we can on it”
approach. They do not at all provide a balanced approach whatsoever and thus loose validity on their
argument. Also they do not separate how much of the diseases caused by radiation on children is
caused by nuclear plants and other sources independently.
The last website, ITER, provides a pro-nuclear view however provides a different perspective
due to its support of nuclear fusion as “the way to new energy”( "ITER - the Way to New Energy." ). This
website advertises nuclear fusion as the perfect energy source because unlike its counterpart, nuclear
fission, it creates basically no waste, due to the fact that the waste decays very quickly, and should have
an output of energy greater than the input. Furthermore, the website states that “a fusion reaction is
four million times more energetic than a chemical reaction such as the burning of coal, oil, or gas”( "ITER
- the Way to New Energy." ). This website can be trusted because it is formed by a coalition of seven first
world countries; which include: Russia, Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, China, India, and France. The
only problem, which is a big problem, is that ITER is still just a theory and has not been proven to be
successful at all. This also implicates that nuclear fusion is not immediately available and thus makes it
not a viable solution. Unlike the two websites, ITER can at any point in time be shut down because this
theory could end up failing. That would mean the end of nuclear fusion.
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Personally, I believe that it would be great to harness nuclear fusion as the United States main
source of energy. I believe that this would be good because nuclear fusion would mean an infinite
amount of energy, no environmental impact, and mean cheap or zero cost energy. However, if nuclear
fusion turns out to not work, I personally do not support revitalizing nuclear fission as the US’s main
energy source. I believe that it would be way too expensive to build more plants when we instead could
rely on renewable resources such as wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro which could produce the same
amount of energy with a lot more cheaper cost. Furthermore, although nuclear disasters have a very
small probability of happening I am still too scared of that .000000000001% chance. I am a “what if”
person so in this situation my mind would think: what if a disaster happens? What if that disaster is near
where my family or I live? What if the radiation is not contained and thus a huge area is ruined because I
supported nuclear energy? These thought are what hold me back from supporting nuclear fission. My
priority actions are to fund the research of nuclear fusion and to fund renewable energy. Funding
nuclear fusion is a priority because if it works we will definitely get our money back and we can provide
infinite energy to the whole world. Funding renewable energy research is my second and last action
because we can use this as an intermediate source of energy because it is the cleanest. Also if fusion
ends up not working then we always have the renewables to fall back on. Basically, all I really want is
nuclear fusion.
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Bibliography
"ITER - the Way to New Energy." ITER - the Way to New Energy. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.iter.org/>.
"Nuclear Information and Resource Service - NIRS." Nuclear Information and Resource Service NIRS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.nirs.org/>.
"WNA in Japanese:." World Nuclear Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.world-nuclear.org/>.