Eugene Robinson, author of “No Fail-Safe Option”, writes during the recent destruction of the Fukushima power plant, cautioning the use of nuclear power, and touching on the Chernobyl incident. He claims that the idea of nuclear energy, in spite of its benefits, is not worth the destruction and damage it could potentially cause.…
The first disparity between the Chernobyl and Fukushima accident is the causes. The Chernobyl accident was caused by human error in conducting the plant outside its technical specifications and failure to notify the proper authorities following the accident. Chernobyl’s power plant also had a faulty nuclear reactor design which exclude a containment structure typically found in most nuclear power plant. The two contributing factors usher the nuclear reactor to explode and failure to contain discharge of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. In contrast, the Fukushima accident precipitate due to natural disaster consist of earthquake and tsunami causing a malfunction of the plant’s cooling system. Unlike Chernobyl, Fukushima’s nuclear plant…
Is it important for you to know what happened at Three Mile Island and at Chernobyl even though you may have little interest in science or engineering? Why and why not?…
As everyone knows, nuclear energy can release nuclear radiation which can kill human’s cells and serious radiation can cause death. Furthermore, radiation can result in genetic variation. Radiation also has nuclear residue. It is hard to clear, may be more than 50 years can disappear. Such as Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, now is a ghost town, no one can live in there because of the radiation residue.…
Discussion takes place in Kiev about type of nuclear plant to be built in Chernobyl. For the reason RBMK (a boiling water reactor) was built because it was the safest reactor and produced the cheapest electricity as well.…
Over centuries humans have always continued to try and find new ways of converting one form of energy into one which humans can manipulate for their own use. One of the most recent forms of converting energy, which is gaining in popularity is nuclear energy. With 14 percent of the world using it today it is a viable alternative to burning fossil fuels. To give you a basic idea on how the process of converting energy works according to the Canadian Nuclear Association is as basic as, “splitting the uranium atom to generate the heat that is used to produce steam for the production of electricity”(www.cna.ca). However things do not always run so smoothly, and the leakage of the nuclear material could have devastating consequences to both the land and its inhabitants. One of the bigger well know events of this nature, came from the power plant Chernobyl. To put simply it is a plant that exploded releasing nuclear waste into the atmosphere. Although this is detrimental to the environment the significance behind this event is because of this accident, we have now learned from our mistakes and are taking more precautions so that history is not repeated. I will prove that history will not be repeated through some background knowledge of the plant, what happened during the meltdown and how it effected the land and inhabitants, and finally what insight we have gained from this event and its significance to history.…
Nuclear power does not put out green house gasses, nuclear power does not pollute our water, and unlike some people believe nuclear power does not release toxic gasses into the air. Some people believe that it produces toxic gases into the air because they see the white clouds that come out of the top of the power plant cooling towers, but in fact those white clouds are actually just the water vapor that has been used to cool the systems, it is not toxic and therefore does not pollute the air. Nuclear energy uses either plutonium or uranium, depending on the type of the reactor. Nuclear reactors produce less waste than any other type of energy source. One pound of plutonium can produce the same amount of energy as 50,000 barrels of oil. The number of deaths caused by coal powered plants is about 24,000 a year. There were only 56 direct deaths caused by the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. Fukushima had no direct deaths, and the only other reported deaths were of the 3 men who were testing a portable reactor in Arco, Idaho. Arco was also the very first city in the world to be powered by nuclear…
What would you do if your town had a nuclear power plant explosion? Would you help clean up or would you just leave town? I would help the people of my town by cleaning up. The chernobyl explosion was caused by an operator error, and cost a lot of money and hurt a lot of people.…
According to McGovern, there are numerous health risks connected to nuclear energy and the exposure of human cells to its radiations. This is a critical aspect in the context of health and other provisions regarding this article. The entire paper discusses more on the aspects of technology and its devastating effects on health. It is vital to agree that technology has revolutionized the entire sectors of economy, health, and social aspects; nonetheless, nuclear energy has impacts that cannot be contained in the health contexts. Numerous strategies are required in order to curb the menace even there is need to embrace such technologies. This article takes a look at the health risks related to the use of nuclear energy and the importance of understanding these risks. This article acknowledges the fact that nuclear energy may have both positive and negative impacts on individual’s health. However, the only positive impact on health which is highlighted in this article is the fact that nuclear energy can be used to produce electricity which is important in maintaining and developing economies (McGovern M. H. and Tiwari J. (2009). the article acknowledges the fact that the positive impacts of nuclear technology may be dwarfed and become insignificant by the extent of the negatives associated with nuclear energy. the radiological and non-radiological risks posed with nuclear mishaps or misuse of nuclear facilities is also discussed. according to the article, the dangers of exposure to high dosages to radiation is illustrated using the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 (McGovern & Tiwari, 2009).…
Nuclear power’s bad reputation has come about due to the accident at nuclear plants such as Chernobyl in Ukraine, Fukushima in Japan and Three Mile Island in the USA. Chernobyl was one of the only ones out of three that has been classified as a “major accident” by The International Atomic Energy Agency; the other was the accident at Fukushima. The reason the Chernobyl accident was considered a “major accident”, was due to the emergency shutdown failing, with a full melt down being achieved. This area is not able to be populated ever again due to the extreme…
Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March of 1979, a reactor malfunction resulted in the release of radioactive material into the atmosphere. The automatic release valve malfunctioned, which prevented water from entering the system and cooling the reactor core. This incident is considered the worst disaster in U.S. nuclear history (Gale). However, from this incident we learned more about how reactors work, the environmental impact, and the health consequences of radiation exposure.…
Many disasters have occurred involving nuclear energy, the two most publicly known ones are the disasters in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan in 2011. The…
2. In “Small Recactors Make a Bid to Revive Nuclear Power”, the Obama Administration and the Energy Department are working on making America the leader in advanced nuclear technology and manufacturing (Biello 2012). They are considering switching the large reactors, which are currently the predominant technology, to small reactors, which will save money. These reactors would contain enough power to power more than 200,000 U.S. homes for a year (Biello 2012). This strategy will cause less nuclear waste and will increase safety issues as well. In another article, “Time to revive, not kill, the nuclear age”, it is stated that a world without nuclear power would be less secure. Neither fossil fuels nor renewable resources will be able to replace the 14 percent of global electricity generated by nuclear reactors (Financial Times 2011). This article sides with MacFarlane by saying the Chernobyl accident was bad, but since then things…
Voices from Chernobyl is an important resource for anyone dreaming of becoming any kind of scientist one day. If one is going to conduct experiments, it is crucial that person knows the fire they’re playing with. In other words, one must be fully aware of the consequences of their experiment, especially if it goes wrong. All a disaster takes is for one incorrect step, calculation, or error of any kind for an experiment to go wrong, and in Chernobyl’s case, simple design flaws and slight coincidences led to an explosion that took thousands of lives and still continues to have an impact on the environment today. So, in this case, it is perfectly logical that students read this book in chemistry classes as a sort of cautionary tale. Students set on becoming scientists when they grow up need to know the possible repercussions of their experiments and the impact they can have on both the environment and innocent civilians in case their procedures go wrong.…
In March 2011, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake hit the pacific coast of Japan, generating up to 133ft tall tsunami waves, which obliterated everything up to 6 mi. inland. According to the NPA (National Police Agency) of Japan, 24, 656 people were affected by this catastrophe, which include the deceased, injured, and missing. The tsunami also affected three of the six nuclear reactors of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant causing leakage of radioactive material. Many workers and even civilians worked hard to contain the harmful material for it to stop contamination in other areas, but it already spread. A The Associated Press news writer states, “The massive amount of radioactive water is among the most pressing…