Nuclear energy – what is your first reaction when you hear those words as a lay person who has no idea what nuclear energy is? Most of us probably have images of a nuclear attack such as Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima, (although those were nuclear weapons that were used and not nuclear energy) or tragedies in nuclear power plants such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Those are the images that pop up in my conscience when I heard the term and started to read the articles that were assigned in our English 101C class, but when I had finished reading the articles my mind opened up to new possibilities and changed my perception of nuclear energy. The topic of Nuclear Energy has stirred up quite a controversy between scientists and the “greens”, some who oppose nuclear energy as an option for clean fuel technology versus those who are pro-nuclear energy.
James Lovelock, an environmentalist and scientist whose “electron capture detector, proved to be an important development in the study of environmental awareness” (Lovelock 1) has published many scientific papers and even inventions that have been adopted by NASA. Lovelock with his innumerable impressive credentials in his article, “Our Nuclear Lifeline” states that nuclear energy is the answer we are looking to save the world from global warming. In “Just Say No “published on Soapbox, Steven Cohen, who is “executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and director of its Master of Public Administration Program in Environmental Science and Policy at the School of International and Public Affairs” (Grist.com), writes based on his option on how dangerous Nuclear energy could be.
Lovelock brings to attention that “nuclear energy is safe and inexpensive and can be bought by countries that are stable versus oil, coal and natural gas which are unsafe. The carbon emissions produced by oil, coal and natural gases are of a highly polluting nature and are bought from unstable countries” (Lovelock 4). Lovelock shuns sources of energy such as wind farms, solar energy, and energy generated from “waves and tidal currents”, proposed by Europe as inefficient, he states “Wind farms are monstrously inefficient and still need fossil-fuel back-up for the three days in four when the wind doesn’t blow. Solar energy is a ridiculous dream for northern Europe. Energy on a large scale from waves and tidal currents are far off” (Lovelock 6). He further strengthens his points by stating that nuclear power is safer than gas, and the radiation that is emitted by nuclear energy is in no way harmful to humans in fact he argues that “Radiation is part of our natural environment and we can live with it” (Lovelock 6); Humans are exposed to more radio activity by chest X-rays and by sleeping next to another human. “The radiation bombarding us goes up 10 percent when we sleep next to another human…X-rays account for 14 percent…”(Lovelock 6). In other words Lovelock brings to attention that everyday mundane activities like drinking coffee and spending a day at the beach exposes us to radio activity radiation hence we should not be worried about the energy that is omitted by generation of nuclear energy.
Cohen on the other hand, attacks the environmentalists with his observation of how dangerous and complicated detoxifying nuclear waste is and how we should not waste our time and effort on a so called solution. He starts his article by stating/attacking “…nuclear power is the new green-energy option being embraced by environmentalists.” (Cohen 1). He states that in order to reduce carbon emissions we cannot subject the world to a greater risk - a potential attack by terrorists on a nuclear plant, the risk of a nuclear power plant mal-functioning and hurting the environment and people. Cohen refers to a statement releasing by John Deutch and Ernest Moniz, two MIT professors, called “The Future of Nuclear Power”, in which they advocate for nuclear power as a “…viable alternative…”(Cohen 1). Cohen writes that he is all for reducing carbon emissions but does not consider that nuclear energy is the answer. To persuade his audience he instills in us the emotional appeal to safety, by stating the dangers of nuclear energy. He brings to attention the incidents of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and asks the question “Do we really want to see what happens if a terrorist attacks a nuclear power plant?”(Cohen 1). He argues his points against nuclear energy in well organized paragraphs in his article. Cohen mentions that nuclear energy is dangerous and complicated, which leads us into the problems of detoxifying the waste and the politics involved in hosting the nuclear plants. He elaborates the complications of detoxifying the waste “that remains toxic for thousands of years” (Cohen 1). Cohen brings forward the political issue of how no city wants to host a Nuclear Power plant or nuclear waste repository.
Digging deep into the articles some points were crystal clear on both sides while some were not so clear. It almost seems like the two authors are in conversation with each other. Lovelock refers to the greens throughout his article, and Cohen refers to the environmentalists. Cohen brings up the issue of the nuclear waste being “…toxic for thousands of years.” (Cohen 1), to which Lovelock responds “It does indeed take a long time to decay but the radioactivity of some of its waste is lost within a few years, rather than the hundreds of thousands of year claimed by the Greens” (Lovelock 8). The discrepancy between both the authors statement is huge in regards to the number of years it takes for the nuclear waste to remain toxic, Cohen insists its thousands of years while Lovelock mentions it’s just a few years. Lovelock and Cohen both agree on the fact that money is not an issue for nuclear energy. Lovelock implies that the use of nuclear energy has a larger return on investment and gives more bang for the money as compared to other sources of energy throughout his article and Cohen states “Money is not an issue” (Cohen 2) and goes on further to explain how “under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act” (Cohen 1) money has been collected. As for the storage and detoxification of nuclear waste, Cohen states that “no power plant can be made risk-free” (Cohen 2). Cohen mentions the differences of a local crash and the effects of the immense damage that might be caused by a power plant, he does not provide the reader with any factual evidence to back up his claim but simply states “Just ask the people who survived Chernobyl” (Cohen 2). Lovelock tackles the issue by explaining the process of handling nuclear waste he states that nuclear waste is handled with care and stored safely, it is simple and lacks complication, and “Greens who fight nuclear energy on these grounds are not being sensible” (Lovelock 8). In other words nuclear waste is something that is tangible and the disposal is handled with care and is safe. The emission caused by burning of fossil fuel is not tangible and out of our control once it goes out into the atmosphere. Cohen asks the question “Do we really want to see what happens if a terrorist attacks a nuclear power plant?”(Cohen 1), to which Lovelock replies “Tests have shown that no aircraft could penetrate the concrete cladding of a modern reactor” (Lovelock 9). Basically Lovelock refutes Cohen’s fear that a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant would have any implications as the power plants are built to withstand an attack.
Cohen and Lovelock write about the Chernobyl incidents but Cohen fails to mention that it was human error or what exactly took place at Chernobyl he simply states that it was due to “obvious problems” (Cohen 1) what are the obvious problems, he fails to address. Searching for the evidence that Cohen brings forward was not an easy task, reason being that there was no factual evidence; he states that an error at a nuclear power plant can be fatal and he backs his statement with “Just ask the people who survived Chernobyl” (Cohen 2). Lovelock cleared my doubts on using Nuclear energy by providing information on the Chernobyl incident by bringing to attention that it was due to a human error that the reactor blew up, also the fact that “no evidence have been found of birth defects with the exception of one”(Lovelock 6). Lovelock uses lots of factual evidence and does not base his article on emotional appeals such as Cohen does in his article. In Lovelock’s article there are a lot of facts that can be verified like his statistics on the different means by which energy is created, coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear. Among the many things he mentions his article covers the effectiveness and limitations of wind farms, solar energy, waves and tidal currents, not to mention the table that shows how different countries are using nuclear energy. Cohen on the other hand does not use facts that can be verified rather he plays on our emotions to feel safe. He asks a lot of questions that play up the fear in our minds such as if we want to see what would happen if there is a terror attack on a nuclear power plant. The individual patterns remain the same for each of the articles – one based on appeals and the other on factual evidences that can be checked.
Studying the “The Nuclear Generation Game” (Lovelock 7) chart and realizing that USA is at the bottom of the list of countries that are already developing Nuclear plants rings a bell in my head, if USA does not act right now then we will lose the competitive edge just like how we lost out on the development of producing energy efficient cars to countries in Asia. The chart lists the different countries of the world and the percentage of nuclear electricity generation in the year 2003, and also the numbers of reactors that are currently operable versus the reactors under construction. The nuclear waste that will be produced will emit zero carbon emission and the waste is minimal and also tangible that can be handled well to not harm living things versus carbon emissions that are not tangible and cannot be stored.
There is one fact that is disturbing - there is currently no technology that can completely detoxify the nuclear waste produced by Nuclear power plants. Cohen argues a good point on why the United States should not promote nuclear energy when they have not developed a method to detoxify nuclear waste. He advocates for channeling our focus on research that will provide other methods of energy without the carbon emissions. Although he admits that something must be done he does not propose a way out of the carbon emission population that we are. His points and even his article seem to lose the essence due to his conclusion and lack of factual evidence. To back up his article he should have given other alternative methods of clean energy rather that rebut Nuclear energy and argue why the other methods would be better rather that just conclude that something had to be done. The disappointment in his article is that he does not propose a method or even hint at one. Lovelock on the other hand answers all the questions that Cohen brings up in his article and I am compelled to lean towards nuclear energy and Lovelocks article as my favorite of the two.
As a lay person who had no idea of what Nuclear energy was, I can now deduce my own opinion after reading numerous articles about the topic. From all the methods that have been brought into focus Nuclear energy seems like a clean and safe way to save our environment for further damage. But methods have to be developed to detoxify the waste that is produced as a result. Also the government will have to take responsibility on the protection on these plants and access granted as well. Nuclear energy seems to the one energy source that is clean, efficient, attainable, and one that can keep up with our energy demands versus solar and wind technologies that cannot meet our energy demands. The only drawback is that there is no technology to detoxify the waste. I am all for Nuclear energy if - and I reiterate – if our scientists can develop a method to detoxify the waste.
Works Cited
Cohen, Steven. “Just Say No.” Grist (2006): 3. 2 Feb. 2009
< http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2006/08/08/cohen/index.html>
Cohen, Steven. Victor, Jacob. “Congestion Pricing saves more than it Costs.” GristMill.com (2007): 3. 2 Feb. 2009. <http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/27/104635/242>
Comby, Bruno. “Detailed biography of James Lovelock.” Ecolo.com. 2 Feb. 2009
< http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/lovedeten.htm>
Lovelock, James. “Our Nuclear Lifeline.” Mar. 2005: 9.
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