Paper 1

"The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies in a standing waist deep in a gasoline, one with three matches and the other with five." Carl Saga. It all started with the discovery of the fission of the element Uranium, by Otto Hahn in
1938. But it was only in 1957 that the first commercial nuclear power plant was started to be operational in Calder Hall, Windscale, England. Since we have seen a series of breakthroughs in the field, but at the same time succumbed to some of the most disastrous situations known to human kind. Nuclear power is one of the most important source of energy in our modern society today, but does follow with long-term physical costs.
In 2012 nuclear power was the source of 12.3% of the worlds energy demand in electricity (NEI) produced by 436 nuclear power plants in 30 countries world wide. For fourteen countries the supply in nuclear power surplused one fourth of the country's demand in energy. They are currently 73 nuclear power plants under construction in 15 different countries. Projections for the source of energy vary from parts of the world, from East Asia (South Korea) who is expected to have the largest growth by 2030, compared to Western Europe which is expected to decline in their dependance of nuclear energy as a main source of power by 2030. A couple of facts that make Nuclear power a viable alternative to more traditional power production such as coal or gas are that, nuclear power generates more energy for less money, compared to solar of wind plants. The nuclear power plants are more safer compared to natural gas or coal production plants. There are sufficient reserves of uranium for the forceable future of humans kind. There is less radioactive waste then people think of, last year the US got ride of a 1000 times more EPA-registerd waste like mercury and PCB's etc. All in all there is a deeply rooted notion in the mind of the every day person that nuclear power is the main lead to human made catastrophes, when it actually is one of the most safe a secure power producing methods.
On another hand their is a real ethical dilemma when it comes to the use of Nuclear Power after the incidents that have happened because of the missuses of Nuclear Power Plants. Chernobly was the most known nuclear meltdown, with a radioactive cloud travelling over almost half of Europe before dissipating. Causing damage, not only to the environment, but the health of every person within a 50 mile radius of the power plant. Every new born child was born with some defect or mutation because of the excessive amounts of radiation that they were exposed to. In a more recent example, in 2011 the nuclear meltdown that happened in Fukushima Japan where three of the six reactors failed to respond when the plant was struck by a Tsunami wave triggered by an earthquake out at sea. The next day the pant started leaking radioactive materials and waste into the sea affecting the natural geology from fish to the human living in the surroundings. It is the only nuclear meltdown event along with Chernobyl to have ranked 7 on the international Nuclear Event Scale. Because of such an important event, many countries revised their approaches to nuclear power, some countries such as Germany took the bold decision to become a nuclear power free country only producing electricity through renewable energy sources such as solar or wind plants to yield the sufficient energy required to sustain their own remade. But a majority of countries have decided to keep to their current plans towards the use of nuclear power, therefore I see a future with more nuclear plants than solar or wind plants unfortunately.
Personally I believe that all countries should follow Germany's lead in the production of clean and sustainable. Even after two man made disasters that have affected and will affect our earth for the next decades, it is time that we learn from our mistakes and move forwards with the goal of leaving a better and better earth for our children and their children. After all, I don't believe that it is the worlds want to have a race of three legged people walking around because we created a chain of Nuclear meltdowns affecting everyone one this earth just for the sake of cheaper and faster energy. If we spend as much time researching how to yield energy from the fission of uranium to the production of energy through more powerful wind and solar plants we will be able to strive in a world free of nuclear plants and along with that the possibilities of having nuclear meltdowns.