What Are The Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Fission

Scientists have discovered countless energy sources, from fossil fuel combustion to nuclear fission and fusion, each of which have seemed to pose a different problem. Whether the problematic effect seems to be cost or carbon dioxide emission, renewable and nonrenewable resources have both seemed to come with a fair set of cons with their pros. Extensive research on the topic has shown that there seems to be no flawless source of energy extraction, however there certainly are sources that are relatively worse than others. This being said, nuclear energy, from the fusion and fission of radioactive elements, is one of the worst sources of energy because of its immense waste, danger to the general public, and large expenses. Residual waste from nuclear energy is an inevitable side-effect of fission. Each radioactive isotope has a half life, which is the specific amount of time that it takes an isotope to decay to half of its original mass. This means that while technically each isotope will exponentially decay, the time it
The isotopes used to provide the nuclear energy are nonrenewable, just like oil and coal. As stated by the Natural Resource Defense Council, a nonrenewable source is defined as a source that is consumed at a faster rate than it is produced. This means that eventually, with the increased dependence on any nonrenewable resource, the abundance of the isotopes will decrease, which in the simplest economic terms means that the cost of the elements will increase exponentially. In addition, the creation of nuclear reactant sites and containment sites requires immense amounts of infrastructural planning, which is another economic strain. High subsidies for the construction and operation of the reaction sites are only then furthered by the land loan guarantees that are needed to preserve the radioactive material (Shredoff,