I read an article in my local newspaper, "The Asbury Park Press," that I want to touch on, as I feel the article articulates on the several downsides of nuclear power. The article is in the local section of the paper and is titled, "Power failure causes fish kill: Striped bass found floating in creek." To briefly summarize what was said in the article, there was a power outage sometime on Friday night that caused the dilution pumps at Oyster Creek power plant to stop operating. These dilution pumps are of particular importance because they are used by the power plant to cool the temperature of the water before the water is sent to the power plant's discharge canal and then sent back out into the adjacent waters. Since the dilution pumps were not functioning, the temperature of the water spiked, and instead of having cool waters discharged to the adjacent waterways warm water was discharged instead. This created thermal pollution due to the change in water temperatures and, in turn, killed hundreds of fish, 300 to be exact, that make their home near the creek that is by Oyster Creek power plant. This is where I felt the article started to give light to some of the downsides of nuclear power. Thermal pollution is not only a negative externality that is caused by Oyster Creek, but it is an issue that is found with a great majority of nuclear power plants. Thermal pollution is not the only problem when it comes to nuclear power. A big issue is how to dispose of the nuclear waste, since it is radioactive material. This radioactive material will remain hazardous for about ten times its half-life, or in the case of uranium, an abundant component used for nuclear power plants, approximately 7 billion years. Now this is an overwhelmingly long time, thus the issue becomes, "Where exactly are we going to store all of this radioactive waste?" There have been many ideas as to what to do with this waste, such as shooting in into space, burying it deep underneath the ocean floor, burying underground, etc. None of these solutions, however, are really safe or even feasible, especially since it is dangerous to transport nuclear waste. Nuclear waste can also travel through soil and contaminate waterways, groundwater supplies, and can even begin to affect our agricultural consumption. Another issue with nuclear power is that in the day and age that we live in with terroristic threats always a possibility, these nuclear power plants can be seen as a danger. There are 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S. alone, and if one of these power plants was to be blown up by terrorists or have a meltdown, there would be catastrophic consequences that could be as bad or even worse than the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occurred in Russia in 1986. There are just too many things that can go wrong with nuclear power, whether it be from human error, technological error, etc. Look at the nuclear disaster that just happened back in January of this year at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. This became a national disaster for Japan and the country is still feeling the effects of it and will most likely continue to feel the effects of it for hundreds of years to come. If the U.S. has learned anything from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster I hope that it is that our country needs to start making a transition away from nuclear power and start relying more on alternative energy sources, whether it be solar power, wind power, geothermal energy, tidal power, etc. It is just completely and utterly foolish that organizations and people make claims that nuclear power is a "clean" or "green" source of energy when the nuclear waste alone is considered to be radioactive and takes billions of years before it is no longer hazardous for humans or the environment. Approximately 20 percent of our nation's electrical needs are being supplied by nuclear power, and we need to start making the transition to relying less on this power. 50 percent of the electricity in my state, New Jersey, alone is being generated by nuclear power, and the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey, NJ is the oldest power plant in the country. Even though the nuclear disaster in Japan was awful for not only Japan but for the world, hopefully it can serve as an eyeopening experience that nuclear power is neither safe nor sustainable as a means of energy for the future.
Peace and love,
The Green Chick
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