three reasons why we should stop using nuclear energy
one. nuclear weapons proliferation
nuclear technology made a violent entrance onto the world stage
just one year after the world's first-ever nuclear test explosion in
1944
two large cities were destroyed by just two single bombs
after that, reactor technology slowly evolved as a means of generating
electricity but it's always been intimately connected with nuclear
weapons technology
it's nearly impossible to develop nuclear weapons without access to reactor
technology
in fact the nuclear non-proliferation treaty serves the purpose of spreading
nuclear reactor technology
without spreading nuclear weapons, with limited success
in forty years five countries have developed their own weapons with the
help of reactor technology
the fact of the matter is that it can be very hard to distinguish
a covert nuclear weapons program from the peaceful use of nuclear energy
in the nineteen seventies the big nuclear powers were happily selling
peaceful technology to smaller countries which then developed weapons of their
own
the road to deadly nuclear weapons is always paved with peaceful reactors
2. nuclear waste and pollution spent nuclear fuel is not only radioactive
but also contains extremely poisonous chemical elements like plutonium
it loses its harmfulness only slowly over several tens of thousands of years
and there is also a process called re processing
which means the extraction of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel
it can be used for two purposes: to build nuclear weapons
or to use it as new fuel, but hardly any of it is used as fuel
because we don't have the right kind of reactors for that, a milligram
will kill you a few kilograms make an atomic bomb and even an inconspicuous
country like Germany
literally has tons of the stuff just lying around because re processing
sounded like a good idea decades ago
and
Where will all the waste go? after dumping it into the ocean was forbidden
we've tried to bury it, but we can't find a place where it will definitely stay
secure for tens of thousands of years
over 30 countries operate nearly 400 reactors
managing several hundred thousands of tons of nuclear waste
and only one is currently serious about opening
a permanent civilian waste storage: tiny Finland
3. accidents and disasters
over sixty years of nuclear power usage there have been seven major accidents in
reactors
or facilities dealing with nuclear waste three of those were mostly contained
but four of them released significant amounts of radioactivity into the
environment
in 1957, 1987 and 2011
large areas of land in Russia Ukraine and Japan
Were rendered unfit for human habitation for decades to come
the number of deaths is highly disputed But probably lies in the thousands
these disasters happened with nuclear reactors of very different types
in very different countries and several decades apart
looking at the numbers we may as well ask ourselves: are 10 percent of the
world's energy supply
worth a devastating disaster every 30 years?
would thirty percent be worth another Fukushima or chernobyl somewhere on
earth
every 10 years? what area would have to be contaminated
so we say no more? where is the line?
so should we use nuclear energy?
the risks may outweigh the benefits and maybe we should stop looking into this
direction
and drop this technology for good if you want to hear the other side of the
argument