Essay Nuclear Power and World Nuclear Association

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Essay Title: Should Nuclear Power be used as an energy resource in the future?

Nuclear power is one of the popular energy resources this century, because it cannot only create electricity power. In the 1950s, it started to develop for the peaceful purposes of nuclear fission, especially for power generation. In the 1950s, the first commercial nuclear power plant started operation (World Nuclear Association, 2012). Since then, the percentage of electricity generation from nuclear sources has increased rapidly: there are over 430 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 31 countries (World Nuclear Association, 2012). Recently however, eight countries have come to possess nuclear weapons (World Nuclear Association, 2012). Nuclear power generation has been used for approximately 50 years, and now has become the most important electrical energy. More than half of the world's population rely on nuclear power, regardless of electronic products or industrial construction and they need nuclear energy (World Nuclear Association, 2012). Nuclear energy is useful, however, it might also causes environmental pollution. The handling of nuclear waste is now a very important issue (Pidgeon and Demski, 2012). As a result, this paper will argue that using nuclear power may not be the optimal option for the energy resource in the future. Nuclear energy is the latest development energy, which can provide enough power for daily needs. When the materials change form, it will release a lot of energy, such objects change in the quality of energy, which is known as the nuclear energy. The benefits of using nuclear energy can be identified. Firstly, nuclear power generation is cost-competitive comparing with other forms of power generation, in addition to the cost of fossil fuels. The cost of nuclear power relative to other energy production is relatively low, not only saving money but also benefiting the economy. This is because nuclear energy is used in comparationly many places, for comparison, despite the higher cost of capital, waste disposal and decommissioning costs to internalize the need for fossil fuel power generation. The social, health and environmental costs of fossil fuels can also be taken into account, where in contrast, the cost of using nuclear power is relatively cheap (World Nuclear Association, 2012). Secondly, the emission level of nuclear power is lower than burning fuels (Energy Citations Database, 1991). In recent studies, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) has announced that the mining industry has been identified as the most extensive and largest energy impact of the social environment, serving as indirect proof of the mining and energy system contribution to global warming. Nuclear energy has also the lowest carbon dioxide emissions for the current energy productions (World Nuclear Association, 2012). Considering the uncertainty of future changes in the prices of oil and energy, striving to conserve energy and actively develop new alternative energy sources to minimize dependence on oil is the main objective of every countries’ world energy policy.

However, there have many disadvantages of using nuclear energy, even though nuclear energy could be a option for the future energy resource. Firstly, using nuclear power is extremely productive, they can break down and are costly to replace. It is a cheap source of energy and also the facilities can easily produce nuclear power for the production of nuclear weapons, which could become a potential risk to the world. Secondly, nuclear power waste can be harmful and it could infect people (Bickerstaff et al., 2008), The radiation waste of which has negative impacts to the environment and human health. Nuclear radiation emitted into the air when the nuclear power plant is in the process of transformation, although
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