Since the late 20th century, a growing amount of concerns have arisen regarding of global warming. In the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, many countries agreed on their responsibility to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in order to fight global warming. As the main source of greenhouse gases comes from the burning of coal to generate electricity, a lot of countries have to come up with alternative methods that do not emit greenhouse gases as the byproduct to generate electricity; the use of nuclear power is one of them.
Nuclear power and its significance
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear fission reaction to generate heat and electricity. Unlike the burning of coal, it does not produce CO2 as the byproduct. According to the International Energy Agency in 2006, 16% of the world electricity is supplied by nuclear power, while other greenhouse-gases-free energy sources, with the exception of hydro power, only all together
World electronic production in 2004
Chart by: InterAcademy Council
contributes to 2% of the world electricity production. The reason of the wide application of nuclear power and hydro power as opposed to other reusable energy sources lies on their low cost. According to Jason Morgan of nuclearfissionary.com, the cost of electricity production by nuclear fission is two times less than wind power and even five times less than solar power.
Downside of nuclear power
Nuclear explosion of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant
Image from: David Twomey
If nuclear power is both relatively cheap and CO2 emission free, would it be the ultimate solution to global warming? The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011 gave an answer to this question. In March 11th, 2011, a 9.0 earthquake in Japan damaged the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant reactor cooling system which led to a radiation leak that affected the habitat within the 30km radius. According to studies by John Ten Hoeve and Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University, the radiation leak has killed around 15 to 1,300 people and caused around 24 to 2,500 cases of cancer. The effect of the radiation leak to the environment is shown in the video below:
The impact of this disaster shows the devastating cost of generating electricity through nuclear plants once an accident occurs. In addition, unlike other energy sources, nuclear power generates a lot of radioactive wastes that would take billions of years to decompose to a level that is no longer hazardous to human. These radioactive wastes have to be carefully treated to avoid contamination of the ground and the water, which would cause health issues to humans.
Nuclear power: should we continue or not?
So, should we continue developing nuclear power or not? In my opinion, despite the cheap cost, the risk of nuclear power to humans has generated as much as, if not more than, the risk of greenhouse gases emission causing global warming. What do you think?
Blog post by: Mervin Wong
