Vladimir Kesler 260501714 FACC 100 Friday

In favor of shutting down nuclear power plants: There is a direct correlation between radiation and cancer development Industry developed in a period of peace and prosperity; the world is becoming less stable and we should consider potential impact of terrorism, climate change, etc. Nuclear power is a long term commitment, and plants are extremely expensive to build Poorly adapted to realities of a changing world There are problems with nuclear waste; half-lives of waste products are long and there are few reprocessing centers Very complex, making mistakes and failures virtually unavoidable, raising the question: Are we competent enough to take care of nuclear power plants? Not efficient, uses only 10% of uranium in the first run Reprocessing is extremely inefficient Death rates are artificially low as they dont count cancers, birth defects, and displacement Only 13.6 percent of worlds energy is nuclear Uranium mining is dangerous

Against shutting down nuclear power plants: Einstein supported it Nuclear energy is cheap; costs 2 cents / kW-h Least polluting source of energy (according to these debaters) We are discovering ways to reprocess nuclear fuels, and slowly eliminating the problem of reprocessing. There are fewer casualties than alternatives Death rates per kW-h: 161 for coal 0.04 for nuclear (In response to criticism about inefficiency of uranium)Uranium is not used as much anymore. Thorium is preferred. Plutonium byproducts can be reused for thermoelectric energy Nuclear energy as a responsibility: Can we afford to not use it?

The debate over nuclear energy has been a long raging one. Many doubt whether it is possible to operate a nuclear plant safely and effectively. Even those who support nuclear energy often object to having plants in close proximity to their homes. At the same time, energy consumption is increasing exponentially and traditional non-renewable fuel sources are, all too quickly, depleting. All too often the debate over this energy resource reduced to the concerns over its safety, focusing on dubious statistics about death rates and vivid descriptions of the horrific accidents have occurred. Those who support shutting down nuclear plants usually focus on the effects of accidents rather than the effects of normal operation, which are mild at worst. In a normally operating plant, the mining of radioactive products would be the most dangerous part of the operation. Mining risks, such as those seen with coal mining, are thus far considered acceptable. Uranium mining is not much different. Another concerned raised in the debate was

the threat of terrorism in the guise of energy production. However, this concern is somewhat moot. The products necessary to make nuclear weapons are much more refined than what is used to produce energy. The unstable isotopes must be present in much higher concentrations to pose any risk, and to concentrate the radioactive materials, sophisticated devices such as centrifuges are required in noticeably larger quantities than would be used by a nuclear power plant. There remains concern that nuclear plants could become targets for terrorists, who could disable the safety systems to cause Fukushima level disasters (Kim & Kang, 2012). There are precautions that could be taken to combat such safety threats. The real problem is that while many people feel that nuclear power plants should be shut down, few of them consider the ramifications of such actions. As noted by the group in support of shutting down nuclear power plants, building plants is expensive. This same fact makes it extremely difficult to justify shutting down a plant because it would be a massive economic loss. The issue that is being argued in reality is that of the allocation of energy production. This puts nuclear in a different perspective, one that requires a replacement should you reject nuclear energys potential gains. At the moment, nuclear has few preferable replacements. Regarding the risk associated with nuclearaccidents are far from the norm. If the risks associated with mining uranium or other nuclear products and running nuclear plants was considered inherently dangerous, such projects would never be undertaken. Nuclear accidents do, however, pose risks to the environment that should not be overlooked in a comparison of different sources of energy. What level of severity is acceptable for a nuclear accident to keep nuclear energy on par with petroleum or coal? Chernobyl is certainly unacceptable, but that was one event. Coal certainly does take a large toll on humans, causing fatalities, both due to black lung disease and accidents, in the thousands every year (Wu, Chen, & Long, 2012). Oil spills are also more frequent than is desired, and have lasting economic and environmental impact on those who live in the vicinity of the spill. These risks, however, are acceptable somehow. It seems humanity must accept the fact that there is risk associated with energy production, and that our insistence as a society on having access to energy far in excess of what renewable and clean energy sources (such as solar panels, wind farms, and hydroelectric stations) can provide creates this dilemma of deciding which risks are acceptable. From the perspective of minimizing deaths and environmental impact per quantity of energy produced, which is a difficult metric to discuss, nuclear energy is at worst on par with the negative impacts of current accepted sources of energy. In the perspective of what risks have been accepted in energy production, and in the absence of a better method of quenching societys thirst for energy, there are too few objectionable aspects of nuclear plants in normal operation to demand that they be shut down. In favor of biodiesel: Biofuels are carbon neutral Algae, trash, excrement can be used, easy to cultivate Costs will be half of oil/petroleum Crops, such as corn based ethanol arent the way to go Using your own waste to create energy is an excellent way to recycle Electric is worse. Batteries are expensive and need to be replaced every 5 years or so. Electricity is made using coal/petroleum not carbon neutral and releases toxic mercury Take forever to charge/few charging stations

Many countries are stretched to produce enough electricity to meet their demands, adding cars to the demand creates problems When its cold, batteries do not hold charge.

In favor of electric cars: Biodiesel emits nitrogen oxides (smog) Less airborne particle emission Electric cars allow for better aerodynamic design Charging stations are being built Range of 241-482 in few hours All electric vehicles require less maintenance than anything using internal conduction Fewer parts/fluids to worry about Brakes last longer Regarding the fear of electrical accidents; Batteries are tested and encased to avoid incident Electrics have lower centers of gravity/less likely to roll over Batteries are designed to last the life of the car Algae- is you use the best places to grow algae would only replace 17% Batteries are recyclable without waste Capacitors could be used instead Biofuel production efficiency is poor

The future of the auto industry is currently up for grabs. Fossil fuels are on their way out and now is the time to choose their replacement. Two strong candidates to replace petroleum based fuels are biodiesel and plug-in electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are preferable. Biodiesels strengths are in its seeming flexibility. It is commonly said that you can make biodiesel from any organic material. Though this is true, there has not yet been a material discovered yet that could efficiently be manufactured into fuel. Ethanol produced from corn, for example, requires an obscene quantity of corn and a long, emission producing, process before it can be used as fuel. Electric cars have their own problems, including the problem of batteries holding charge differently at different temperatures. Despite those problems, electric technologies make up for its problems. As far as charging stations, if this technology is chosen by the market, these will surely be built at frequent intervals. This begins to mitigate the issue of range. The second problem is charging time for the battery and other battery related issues. However, these may not apply. There is compelling work being done in the field of electronics with supercapacitors, high energy versions of capacitors that charge quickly, and discharge efficiently (Wang, 2012). In theory, capacitors are more durable and do not use their ability to hold charge with repeated use. The only question that remains unanswered is: where will the electricity come from? Much of the worlds grids are powered by fossil fuels. By using more energy from the grid you are likely to increase your dependence on these scarce fuels. It would seem that this would give biodiesel the advantage, yet biodiesel would need to be manufactured and those processes would need to be powered using some fuel source. As the world moves towards

hydro/solar/wind/nuclear sources for power, using some electricity to power cars begins to be preferable to taking up large expanses of ocean to grow algae for a biofuel. This assumption about the trend in energy production shifts a lot of responsibility on that industry; however, the energy industry is already working hard to produce more with fewer emissions and undesirable consequences. Picking electric cars over biodiesel cars applies all the pressure in one industry. It is possible that shifting the focus from the emissions coming from your car to the emissions from the grid itself. This shift would be a valuable change of perspective that could influence additional innovation and drive in the field of energy production. If electric cars cause prices for electricity to rise, people will notice that the same way they notice gas prices today. The major difference is that improving our methods of producing electricity has a much wider scope than making engines that use less gas.

Artificial Intelligence not possible: Computers follow instructions Machines are finite state systems Humans are infinite state systems Memory limitation to implementing AI Human memory works differently from machine memory No rules for consciousness so cant be programmed

Artificial intelligence possible: Not necessarily computer based Organically engineering intelligent beings may one day be possible

In this debate, it appeared very much as though the two sides were discussing two completely different things. The side that argued that artificial intelligence was not possible seemed to define artificial intelligence as a full-fledged human consciousness that could be reproduced on a computer. Their opponents had a broader view and suggested that artificial intelligence is not limited to computers; a genetically engineering being would qualify. In my mind, intelligence means the ability to make decisions. Though we may not realize it, humans do in fact make decisions in a systematic way: we do what we want to do whenever we can. That is not hard to program. For example, when you write a program you have to compile it. The compiler goes through the code and makes a program if it is valid, or tells you what the problem is if the code is not valid. The compiler has a purpose or a goal; it wants to make a program from the code that you have provided. To achieve that goal, it executes a series of steps to that end, the last of which, most of the time, is to tell you to fix your mistakes. It makes decisions. The difference is that its goals are smaller in our eyes than our own. Is it necessarily fair to declare that artificial intelligence is only intelligence that is at the level of a human being? We evolved from animals that are somewhat intelligent as well. And is it a valid assumption to say that human intelligence is the best or most desirable kind of intelligence? One thing that computers do much better than humans is math. While you divide 12376548374 by 7.3, your computer can execute the same task in fractions of a second. Artificial intelligence

research should not focus on making computers behave like humans; it should focus on programming computers to do tasks that are useful to us. And that task has rules. Picture a computer automated house. It knows from your Google calendar that you have a meeting in the morning so a few minutes before it is programmed to wake you it heats up the stove and cracks some eggs into a frying pan for your breakfast. Unless it hears you wake up through the microphones in your room and start to get dressed, it will ring a loud alarm and use some mechanical arms to neatly prepare some professional looking clothes to wear to your meeting. The same trend of convenience continues. None of this is impossible; it just hasnt been invented yet or, if it has, is too expensive for anyone sane to buy. Of course computers can be used for higher order tasks than making you coffee before work, but the value of artificial intelligence lies in such basic tasks. It fulfills your desires before you necessarily know you have them. A computer would do this task using algorithms; a human would base such decisions on feelings. It is hard to say which is definitively better, but the fact that it is possible to have a computer read your feelings using cameras that monitor facial expressions and body language (Zhao, Wang, Goubran, Whalen, & Petriu, 2013). Ultimately humans do follow rules. Much research would need to be done to discover those rules in order to program a machine to behave similarly (even if it must operate in a limited fashion due to memory constraints). Consciousness is not equivalent to intelligence. The first is difficult. The second is, to a large extent, achievable.

Kim, D., & Kang, J. (2012). Where nuclear safety and security meet. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(1), 86-93. Wang, R. (2012) The design of on-board supercapacitor energy storage system of electric-car. Vol. 548 (pp. 591-594). Wu, P., Chen, H., & Long, R. (2012). Relationship between coal output and safety in China. Disaster Advances, 5(4), 551-556. Zhao, Y., Wang, X., Goubran, M., Whalen, T., & Petriu, E. M. (2013). Human emotion and cognition recognition from body language of the head using soft computing techniques. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, 4(1), 121-140.