Kett & Carrender 1

Ryan Kett & Daniel Carrender

A. Moore

ENG 111

November 20, 2023

Nuclear Energy: The Good, the Bad, and the Uranium

As you sit, quietly sipping on the warm coffee within your grasp, your mind is violently

ripped from its momentary state of relaxation by flashing red warning lights and blaring sirens.

Both signs foretell the end of everyone within a ten-mile radius of the reactor; thoughts of your

family flash in your mind as you leap from your seat and begin to run down the hall. Then, as

suddenly as they appeared, the lights and sirens fade, leaving you in the brightly lit corridor. You

begin to realize that one of the numerous safety fail-safes prevented the potentially catastrophic

meltdown of the reactor; you turn around and begin to clean the spilled remains of your coffee.

Nuclear energy, the potential savior of humanity, is portrayed as a devil. Countless times,

nuclear energy has proved far more efficient and safe than other energy sources, yet many see it

as dangerous due to its checkered past. This fear is not entirely unfounded; events such as the

Chernobyl and Fukushima reactor accidents, as well as the bombings of both Hiroshima and

Nagasaki, have caused widespread fear of nuclear energy. However, these events happened

decades ago when nuclear energy was still experimental and used for harm. Since then,

significant advancements in the field have made nuclear energy safe, reliable, and efficient.

Countries worldwide are beginning to recognize this fact and have begun implementing nuclear

energy into their power grid; this has had incredibly beneficial effects on their economy and their

environmental carbon levels. Nuclear energy is the solution to climate change because of its

power production efficiency and relatively nonexistent carbon footprint.

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This bold statement begs the question, why is nuclear energy so much better than other

energy sources? Fossil fuels revolutionized our society by allowing us to produce energy and

products such as plastic, gasoline, asphalt, and many medicines. While fossil fuels have allowed

us to make everything from water bottles to rockets, the CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have

harmed the environment, potentially meaning the destruction of our planet if it continues

(Banday et al. 2020). Fossil fuels are a necessary evil due to their crucial role in our economy

and power grid, but that can change with the integration of nuclear energy. While nuclear energy

cannot make plastic, it is a CO2-free energy source that is highly reliable and cost-efficient,

unlike other sources. However, it produces radiation and other potentially hazardous

by-products. Still, many can be recycled for further energy production or rendered harmless

through the proper procedure (Majeed et al., 2022). With all of the safety protocols and advanced

technology, the radioactive emissions of nuclear power plants are less than the level of

radioactive radon gas naturally released by the soil (Majeed et al., 2022). Most other energy

sources burn natural resources to produce heat, which is used to heat water, creating steam,

which then spins a turbine, making power. However, this has CO2 through the burning process;

nuclear energy uses nuclear fission to produce heat.

Nuclear fission is the process by which a Uranium 235 atom splits after obtaining an

extra neutron; this produces heat in the form of radiation, two halves of the atom, and three

neutrons; these neutrons react with other Uranium 235 atoms, producing more neutrons that react

with more Uranium 235 atoms creating a chain reaction (“Nuclear 101” 2023). The reaction

grows exponentially until it responds to a point where there is too much heat being produced in

such a short amount of time that heat has only one place to go, and that is the area around it,

resulting in either a massive explosion or steam, depending on how it is contained. That is both
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how a nuclear reactor works and how an atomic bomb works. The Tsar Bomba was the most

significant nuclear weapon, with an astounding 50-megaton blast capacity and a uranium 235

core weighing 141 lbs. That one bomb produced enough energy to power all of New York City

for 440 days. Producing this much energy was only possible through nuclear fission, but when

used responsibly, we can control the reaction to deliver the power but not the destruction. The

reaction can be stopped and controlled by using coolant and the positions of the uranium fuel

rods within the reactor core (“Nuclear 101,” 2023). When used responsibly and safely, we can

harness all that energy released by bombs, even as big as the Tsar Bomba, and do it cheaper than

any other energy source.

However, nuclear energy is far from the first choice of most countries today, especially in

the US, where most energy production is fossil fuels. The term fossil fuels categorizes any fuel

source derived from biomatter that has been treated with heat and pressure for thousands of

years; this includes coal, natural gas, and petroleum oil. These comprise 60.5% of the US power

grid, with coal making 19.7%, natural gas making 39.9%, petroleum making .5%, and other

gasses making up .3% (United States Energy Information Administration “FAQ” 2023). These

energy sources function similarly to nuclear energy because they use heat to produce steam,

which then spins a turbine, finally generating electricity. The main difference is that instead of

using nuclear reactions to produce heat, they use heat produced by burning these fossil fuels to

boil the water. Burning any biomatter always creates a certain level of CO2; fossil fuels are no

exception and have 1,650 million metric tons of CO2 per year in the US alone (United States

Energy Information Administration “FAQ” 2023). That is, 3,637,623,000,000 lbs of CO2 are

released into the atmosphere yearly, purely from burning fossil fuels. That is the equivalent of a

cube of CO2 1.42 miles wide on each side or a cube of cheese 1.15 miles wide.
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There is no question that CO2 is damaging the environment; fortunately, many “green”

energy sources do not release CO2. However, many of these come with additional environmental

risks or hidden CO2 costs. “Green” energy categorizes renewable energy sources such as solar,

wind, geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectric. Green energy sources make up 21.3% of all power

produced in the US, wind making 10.3%, hydroelectric making 6%, solar making 3.4%, biomass

making 1.2%, and geothermal making .4% (United States Energy Information Administration

“FAQ” 2023). These do not produce CO2, and all function differently than other energy sources

discussed thus far, except biomass, which burns freshly harvested plant material in the same way

fossil fuels are used. Solar power uses solar panels to turn sunlight into electricity; wind turbines

work by using wind to spin their blades, which produce electricity; hydroelectric uses water

current to spin turbines, which produce electricity; and geothermal uses the heat of volcanic

activity to convert water into steam which spins a turbine and produces electricity. While all of

these circumvent the need to use fossil fuels, they all have glaring flaws. Solar panels require

rare earth minerals, usually mined under poor working conditions, and damage the earth.

Hydroelectric requires building dams and permanently destroying vast ecosystems. All of these

sources are very unreliable and, as such, require batteries, which also require rare earth minerals,

and the cost of constructing these sources, in most cases, ultimately produces CO2. Uranium 235

is also a mineral that needs to be mined, but in significantly lower amounts than “green” energy

sources for the same power output; in fact, the net carbon produced by nuclear energy is equal to

the net carbon produced by wind turbines with the added benefit of being available regardless of

environmental conditions.

Nevertheless, nuclear power is dangerous, and its history shows this. The Chernobyl and

Fukushima reactor meltdowns were both catastrophic accidents that permanently altered
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everything within their respective exclusion zones. These accidents, as well as the bombing of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, really show the destructive power of nuclear energy. While this is true,

all of these events occurred decades ago when the technology was still new or, in the case of

Fukushima, negligence in both the reactor design and regulations within Japan. The Chernobyl

disaster was a catastrophic nuclear meltdown that occurred in 1986. The disaster has had

significant consequences on the surrounding environment and irreversibly changed the lives of

countless people, “A far more serious disaster struck the Chernobyl nuclear facility in the Soviet

satellite state of Ukraine in 1986, causing fiery explosions and the mass ejection of large

radioactive chemical clouds. At least thirty people died of acute radiation poisoning within

weeks of the incident, and adverse health effects caused by the radioactive plume are believed to

be responsible for thousands of further fatalities” (Gale “Nuclear Energy” 2023). So why did this

accident happen? Ironically, many credit the meltdown to a safety experiment gone wrong; the

safety technicians at Chernobyl wanted to test its ability to switch between power systems safely.

To do this, they had to turn off all safety features so that the reactor would not stop the test, then

leave the reactor running at a lower rate so the water pumps would remain powered. However,

“the operators made a critical error right at the start. They inserted the control rods…too far into

the reactor. This decreased its output so much that there was not enough energy left over to

power the water pumps when the switch-over occurred” (Wellerstein, 2023). The lack of power

left the reaction uncontrolled, so it quickly scaled to unprecedented numbers for the reactor and

caused a catastrophic failure. This was purely due to negligence from the technicians and the

supervising staff and could have been prevented. Since 1986, we have made further

advancements in training safety technicians and safety protocols within the reactor to ensure that

a disaster like Chernobyl will never happen again.

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But, it did happen again in 2011. The Fukushima reactor meltdown was much like the

Oceangate Submersible accident; the engineers cut corners on the construction, and

policymakers in Japan were too relaxed regarding regulations (Odle, 2019). So, the reactor was

not built to withstand the effects of an extremely likely seismic event; the meltdown had similar

consequences to the Chernobyl accident. Even though this is an example of a modern nuclear

reactor failing, it does not accurately reflect the standards or the potential dangers of any other

modern reactor. This accident is similar to the Oceangate submersible accident; the submersible

was poorly designed and did not meet any of the regulations. As such, the submarine had a

catastrophic failure, and all of the passengers met their immediate demise. However, it would be

unfair and almost idiotic to assume that all other submarines are dangerous because of this

poorly designed submarine. The same is true for the Fukushima reactor. It is unfair to assume

that all other modern reactors are dangerous because of one poorly designed reactor. Not only is

the majority of modern nuclear energy safe and efficient, but it also has highly beneficial effects

on the economies of countries that have adopted it. Countries adopting it have seen a

substantially more stabilized power grid, a significant drop in environmental CO2 levels, and

economic growth with new jobs available in every market sector.

In conclusion, despite what many believe, nuclear energy is a safe energy source that is

not only on par with or better than green sources from an environmental standpoint but is also

more reliable and efficient than any other energy source. While it does have drawbacks and risks,

the benefits far outweigh any potential risks, especially since there have only been two examples

of nuclear reactor accidents since its invention in 1942. Nuclear energy is the solution to climate

change.
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Works Cited

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Economic Growth and Carbon Emission in BRICS: Evidence from Bootstrap Panel

Causality." International Journal of Energy Sector Management, vol. 14, no. 1, 2020, pp.

248-260. ProQuest,

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ble-non-energy-consumption-economic-growth/docview/2334591316/se-2.

Electric Power Annual. “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - U.S. Energy Information

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Administration (EIA), 20 October 2023, https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427.

Accessed 20 November 2023.

Electric Power Annual. “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - U.S. Energy Information

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https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11. Accessed 20 November 2023.

Majeed, Muhammad T., Tania Luni, and Tasmeena Tahir. "A Comparative Analysis of Nuclear

Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions Nexus: Empirical Evidence from the Global

Economy and Income Groups." Environmental Science and Pollution Research, vol. 29,

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Odle, Teresa G. "Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Disaster." The Gale Encyclopedia of

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https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-101-how-does-nuclear-reactor-work.

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