The Dangers of Using Nuclear Power - Research Paper Example

Researching about nuclear energy and its dangers was quite a daunting task for me. I relied on the UMUC library to access books and journalsupon which my paper is based. I also got to learn from the library how to avoid infringing on copyright and how to write and format a good essay. Some of the challenges experienced during the writing process included an overwhelming amount of information from which to choose. From my research I realized the immense potential of nuclear energy and noted its adverse effects in the event of an accident, accidental spillage or misuse. In overall, the technology is good when used properly but can cause grave damage to the environment, loss of lives and property, and cause serious health problems. Nuclear energy while considered clean during use may not be clean after all. This is so considering that the process of mining uranium, plutonium and other radioactive fuels leads to a lot of environmental pollution. Furthermore, nuclear waste disposal is a great challenge today since the fuel emits a lot of radiation that may affect humans and animals negatively. The radiations from the wastes and from leakages in nuclear plant can cause radiation poisoning and cancer in humans. Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Reflection Essay From my research on nuclear energy, I have come to learn about how nuclear energy is produced. I also learnt a lot in terms of formatting, editing, and avoiding plagiarism. My main challenge was in choosing the right sources to use. I also found it difficult to read and digest the amount of information that I accessed. The research proved to be successful as I got to learn a lot of research skills and got a lot of useful information relating to the topic. Generally, my research went well as I got some useful information regarding the topic. I chose the topic after thinking deeply about it. After brainstorming and searching various alternative topics, I settled on nuclear energy. I chose the topic due to the fact that the energy, in spite of its great benefits and wholesome advantages, is a subject of great controversy. Although thought to be clean, the energy is associated with many risks and environmental issues that deserved to be discussed. My choice of topic was prompted by my need to learn more about nuclear energy and to establish if it is worthwhile for any country to use the energy source. From the results I got online, I realized that the subject has a lot of literature to be relied on. During the research, I noticed that there are so many sources that discuss nuclear energy. My problem was choosing which of the sources to rely on and which ones to ignore. I perused so many sources and settled on those that dealt with my subjects of interest mainly. At first I typed whole sentences and searched them online. The results that I got through this method were not good and I decided to use short phrases and single words to search. Some of the keywords/ keyword phrases that I used include nuclear energy, nuclear plant, nuclear reactors, nuclear proliferation risks, nuclear environmental degradation, dangers nuclear energy, and radioactive radiations dangers. I relied on Proquest database and the Internet to complete the research searching mainly the keywords and narrowing down the searches by dates. The UMUC library resources proved to be quite valuable in my research. I learnt how to find journals from the library and used some books from the online electronic reserves library with the help of the catalogue. I also learnt how to avoid plagiarism by providing in-text citations wherever I presented the ideas of other authors through the citation resources centre. The energy is advantageous for its use of limited amount of fuel in the production of massive amounts of energy units. I have also learnt that the energy requires great care for its awesome potentiality. In addition to these, I have come to learn about the dangers of using nuclear energy. During the production of its fuels, a lot of harmful wastes are produced. The wastes produced during the process can cause environmental degradation as the air, land and water gets polluted during the mining and processing of the radioactive elements. I have learnt a lot of research skills by completing this assignment. Previously, I though I could write the essay off head. However, I came to realize just a few pages down the line that I needed to do a lot of research especially if I need to produce quality work. During the research process, initially I found it difficult to find good sources. It took me a lot of time to learn how to access good sources on the Internet. In order to overcome this challenge, I had to research on how best to find sources. I learnt that instead of searching whole sentences or single words, specific keyword phrases would be best for narrowing down on a subject or having low quality results. In my future research, I hope to continue applying this knowledge. I also came to realize in the process of my research that some sources are more valued than others ion the academic field. In this respect, I have realized that the best sources to use during a research are credible sources. The credibility of a source depends on the reputation of the author. Also, it depends on the level to which the author is bias. When the author is less biased and presents different perspectives, the source’s credibility goes up and vise versa. Yet again, I realized that more recent sources are valued more compared to sources that were written or published long ago. This is because more recently published sources are assumed to contain more up-to-date information. Thus means that they are also more reliable considering the changes that occur in the world each day. In my paper, I realized that I provided very little statistics. I have however come to realize the importance of providing statistics to reinforce facts and to shoe the effects or consequences of events. For example, in this paper, I would better have provided the number of people who were harmed or killed during the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This way, the audience gets to realize how powerful a nuclear weapon can be. I have also provided very few examples in demonstrating facts. In my future papers, I hope to use more examples so that my audience can get a practical gist of what I am writing about. The risk of copying other people’s works is known to every professional. When writing the paper, the temptation to copy and paste words from other sources was quite evident. I however constantly fought away the thought knowing its consequences and for the desire to learn how to research and write good papers. I am glad that I did the work relying on my analysis of researched sources. I also learnt to cite and reference the sources that I used in the paper in the process of completing this paper. For the numerous things that I have learnt about researching and essay writing, I would comfortably give myself an A grade. This is because I learnt a lot of skills and knowledge related to finding good information, citing sources, referencing sources, formatting using MLA and editing. My research was successful due to available sources as well as research methods used. The research tackles the dangers of nuclear energy as well as the relevance of nuclear energy to the world. It states the problems caused by the use of nuclear energy to the whole world. It also highlights effects of nuclear power to the society, and the environment. Name: Instructor: Course: Date Dangers of Nuclear Energy Introduction Nuclear energy is under great scrutiny because of its risks, which some consider to surpass its benefits. It is a source of energy, which greatly benefits the whole world. According to Westfahl (561) reducing emissions through the production of nuclear energy can contribute to reduction of global warming. Compared with coal and gas, it is much better since it creates less than 1/100th of the carbon dioxide created by traditional power plants. Uranium, the main source of nuclear energy, is reasonably cheap and is easily accessible in large quantities. It is also easy to transport to nuclear rectors around the world. Making of nuclear energy is also relatively affordable. Nuclear energy is efficient compared to fossil fuels and coal. Its energy is very powerful compared to the other sources of energy. Reactor technology improves in the nuclear plants hence minimizing waste production and help in addressing a lot of concern regarding nuclear energy. If nuclear plants receive good financial support, there will be an improvement in the future. Improving the design tool will make the plant run more carefully reducing accidents. Nuclear energy is produced from nuclear reaction by fission or fusion. In the industrial setting, nuclear energy is used in the producing steam which drives machines. A turbine that generates electricity uses the steam produced by the nuclear plant. Nuclear reaction occurs when the nucleus of radioactive elements such as uranium and plutonium fuse and split under controlled conditions. When a single heavy nucleus splits into two smaller nuclei, fission occurs while when too smaller nuclei fuse to form another heavy nucleus nuclear fusion occurs. In this paper I discuss about nuclear energy and its dangers. Nuclear Energy and its Dangers Nuclear energy is either natural of synthetic. The sun is a good example of natural nuclear energy. The sun converts a portion of its mass into energy through nuclear fusion. It converts almost four Billion kilograms into energy every second. Stars convert 2 x1033kilograms of mass into energy every second. Other bodies, which use the power of nuclear fusion to generate energy in form of light, heat, and radiation, are also sources of natural nuclear energy (Adamson 56). Nuclear energy is so far the most effective solution to the world’s electric needs. It has been scientifically established that mass can be converted into energy and the reverse is true. According to Albert Einstein’s formula E= mc2, in one kilogram of mass, there is an incredible amount of energy. In a nuclear reaction, a very small percentage of mass transforms into power. Approximately, for nuclear fission only 0.1% of mass gets transformed into energy while for nuclear fusion only 0.7% is transformed into energy. This power is big enough to the extent of being used to produce extremely powerful weapons like atomic bombs. A nuclear power plant has 0% harmful emissions if well operated. However, if a nuclear plant is under poor management, it is dangerous because of the radioactive products, that apply in the process of generating energy. Many power plants in the developed world use nuclear reactors to produce electricity. Nuclear energy is produced in a nuclear reactor after which the reactor passes heat from the controlled nuclear fission to water or any other fluid used to put in motion electric turbines for the production of electricity. A nuclear reactor, once loaded, can work for years with the same radioactive fuel hence this proves its efficiency. There are great risky related to nuclear energy although the energy source has immense benefits. There question that may be asked is: is it safe using this power or is it dangerous and the risk is not worth it. Nuclear energy is a very vital source of energy in the world today. It is a very important subject of study since as much as its benefits are very important to the world today its dangers are irremediable. Nuclear energy has several risks. For one, the energy and its production process can cause serious accident. For instance, an accident occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine that led to a lot of deaths. The power plant exploded causing a lot of damage and is known to be the worst nuclear accident ever to occur in the world to-date. Furthermore, several people suffered from radiation exposure and others suffered from acute radiation poisoning. Thousands of cancer deaths resulted from the nuclear accident. Another accident that was a result of nuclear energy relates to the Three Miles Island nuclear reactor. The nuclear accident that occurred in March 1979 at Harrisburg is known to be the worst accident in the United States’ history (Adamson 176). Consequences caused by the accident include, radiation contamination of the surrounding, thyroid cancer, and plant mutations. The accident occurred because of equipment failure and human error. It is evident that a nuclear power plant accident can kill more people than an atomic bomb. During the transportation of nuclear fuels and waste material, there is a chance that some radiations may be released in the atmosphere. The effects of such radiations are adverse both to humans, animals and the environment as a whole. Environmental degradation is another risk associated with nuclear energy. The production of radioactive isotopes contaminates ground water, plants, air, land, and the surrounding environment. This in turn affects the entire ecosystem and people. Some isotopes are extraordinarily long lived as they remain toxic for a very long period (Elizabeth 207). The Atomic Energy Agency that is responsible for the control of world’s nuclear facilities and weapon proliferation acknowledges that it can no longer detect all the possible diversion of nuclear materials. Nuclear waste, which is another risk of nuclear energy, can result in many ways. It may be produced in the reactor core, as a byproduct of uranium mining, refining, and enrichment or as result of radioactive contamination. The problem arises since there is no known best way to deposit this waste. The waste remains dangerously radioactive until it naturally decays. The half –life of plutonium is twenty four thousand years, this is evidence that it takes a nuclear waste a lot of time to decay naturally. Currently, in the United States there is suggestion to dump this waste at Yucca Mountain, Navenda. However, this mountain cannot hold all the waste from all plants for a long time. There will be hence be no proper place for the disposal of more the wastes in future. In addition, transporting the waste by truck or rail is very dangerous. This plan is shortsighted and a very dangerous scheme since it will endanger the lives of the present Americans and generations to come. Nuclear power plants are of great risk to public safety. Nuclear plants release radioactively toxic substances. These substances scatter into the air and water that the community uses (Constance 57). This increases chances of cancer in that downstream community, especially, among children. The public pays tax for actions of greedy corporate interests that negatively affect their healthy and safety. Nuclear explosions damage the living tissues in the body of human (Ramberg 181). For instance, the explosions that occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people received a dose of radiations at the instant of the explosions (Ramberg 43). People received other radiations from the surrounding, and radioactive particles in the upper atmosphere by the nuclear explosion that eventually came back to the earth’s surface. Only 25 rems of radiation cause detectable changes in blood. Doses above 100 rems cause the first signs of radiation sickness which include, vomiting, fever, diarrhea, headache, loss of white blood cells which mainly defend the body against infections hence making radiation victims highly vulnerable to diseases (Misiroglu 127).These radiations can cause temporary loss of air, damage of nerve cells, and cells that line the digestive tract. These radiations reduce the production of platelets that help in blood clotting. This makes victims of radiation vulnerable to hemorrhaging. If people expose to extreme radiation doses, like 450 rems, half of them die. Doses of 800 rems and above are always fatal. Death occurs within two to fourteen days to victims affected by extreme doses of radiation. Survivors of these radiations are prone to diseases such as, cancer of blood, breast cancer, thyroid cancer, and cancers of other organs. Furthermore, the radiations can cause genetic diseases and cell mutation which are negative in respect of health. Conclusion Nuclear energy is very convenient and cheap when it comes to large scale production of energy. The energy from my research can be used positively or negatively. When applied positively, the energy can benefit a nation immensely by providing cheap electrical energy. On the other hand, nuclear energy can be extremely dangerous especially when accidents occur or when used as a weapon. The damage caused by the atomic bombs used during the Second World War on Hiroshima and Nagasaki attest to this fact. Furthermore, the outcomes of nuclear plant accidents almost defy description considering the energy’s long-term and short term effects. Work Cited Adamson, Greg. We all live on Three Mile Island: the case against nuclear power. Westport: Resistance Books, 1981. Print. Smith, Brice. & Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Insurmountable risks: the dangers of using nuclear power to combat global climate change. Western MA: RDR Books, 2006. Print. Ramberg, Bennet. Nuclear power plants as weapons for the enemy: an unrecognized military peril. University of California Press. 1984. Web. Constance, Elizabeth. Thirsty planet: strategies for sustainable water management. London: Zed Books, 2004. Print. Westfahl, Gary. The Greenwood encyclopedia of science fiction and fantasy: themes, works, and wonders. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005 print. Read More