Three Potential Health Effects from Radiation Exposure - Essay Example

Exposure to radiation poses adverse health effects, particularly when the duration of exposure is elongated and the intensity of radiation is high. Radiation could cause cancer as tissues get exposed to radioactive elements. Secondly, when fetuses are exposed to radiation, birth defects could occur which include smaller brain size or head, mental retardation, or poorly formed eyes. Finally, radiation, particularly ultraviolet radiation from the sun, causes cataracts which are the leading cause of blindness (Nadakavukaren, 2011). The sievert, Sv, is the unit of radiation weighted dose which measures the harmful potential of radiation based on the type of radiation and also the sensitivity of the body organs and tissues involved.

1. Imagine that the LADWP decided to build a power plant on the vacant land at the northwest corner of Lassen and Zelzah. For the purposes of this exercise, they are considering one of the following three options: a coal power plant that employs 100 people, a solar plant that employs less than ten full-time employees, or a nuclear power plant that produces three times the amount of energy as the other two choices.

Provide 9 full sentences describing the pros and cons of the proposed options. Focus on the environmental health issues and include at least 2 statistics in the response. The argument should be balanced and incorporate factual material from at least 3 journal articles from the database link noted above.

Should LADWP opt to build a coal power plant, they could benefit from its widespread availability which further protects the environment from the pollution that could result from its transportation had it been scarcely distributed. However, a coal energy plant would lead to immense air pollution because of the generation of particulate matter in form of dust. In fact, Katoria, Sehgal and Kumar (2013) observe that 50,000 tonnes of coal could generate 250 tonnes of dust.

Therefore, the municipal utility could opt for a solar power plant that has been credited with no production of greenhouse gases thus protecting the environment from global warming. Even so, the equipment used in solar energy plants requires vast land hence mostly located in deserts. Habiba and Saha (2013) note that with this regard, solar energy could be disruptive to the fragile desert biota with the accompanying immense water demand by the solar power plant negatively impacting on the already scarce resource in the desert.

LADWP could therefore opt for a nuclear power plant, nuclear energy being the provider of 15% and 6% of the world’s electricity and energy respectively (Xiang & Zhu, 2011). This option has the advantage of not emitting greenhouse gases known to harm the environment and further generates minimal waste as compared to the other sources of power. Nonetheless, the need to mine radioisotopes to supply the energy for the power plant poses the risk of polluting the environment with particulate matter and noise.