UGEC 2710 Essay

Name: Leung Lok Wai

SID: 1155092495
Topic: Should nuclear energy in Japan be abandoned after the Fukushima nuclear
plant accident?

Introduction

On 11th March 2011, there was a large earthquake happened in Fukushima Japan.

It was described as the greatest earthquake happened in the history of Japan. As the

earthquake has destroyed the homeland of many local citizens, the earthquake has

also caused a great tsunami which cuts of the power supply of nuclear plants. As the

cool down function of the nuclear plant have been disabled, the radioactive cores

immediately melt, which caused the leakage of high radiation (World Nuclear

Association, 2017). The accident has raised high awareness in the world about the

safety of using nuclear power as the majority supply of energy. This paper aims to

discuss the different viewpoints on the usage of nuclear energy.

Advantages of Nuclear Power

The first advantage of using nuclear energy is that it will produce less greenhouse

gases. As the uranium core will generate large amount of heat in the process of

nuclear fission to boil water for generation of electricity, the process will not release

greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane (Rinkesh, 2016). According to the
studies done by Nuclear Energy Institute, Nuclear energy facilities avoided 554

million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2016 across the U.S. (Nuclear Energy

Institute, 2017a). In this case, it is proved that nuclear power can generate electricity

in a more environmental friendly way.

The next advantage of using nuclear energy is due to its high efficiency. Between

all those renewable energy, nuclear energy can generate the most amount of

electricity. According to Nuclear Energy Institute, Nuclear power plants provided 11

percent of the world's electricity production in 2014. In 2016, 13 countries relied on

nuclear energy to supply at least one-quarter of their total electricity (Nuclear Energy

Institute, 2017b). Moreover, nuclear power can generate electricity more stable. As

some of the renewable energy resources like solar energy and wind power depend on

the weather, the supply of electricity from above ways is very unreliable. However,

nuclear power will not be affected by weather but the uranium core, which can ensure

the efficient supply of electricity for human activities (Rinkesh, 2016).

Another advantage of using nuclear energy is that it costs less compare to other

energy resources. Like other renewable energy, the construction cost of the nuclear

plant is quite expensive. However, when the nuclear plant is ready to do its work,
firstly its maintenance fee is not expensive and the plant can run for a long period like

40-60 years. Nuclear plants are inherently more expensive to manufacture and also

have a much higher cost of capital than fossil-fuel power plants (Schultz, 2012).

Moreover, it only requires and little bit of uranium to generate large amount of

electricity, which also lowers the cost of generating electricity.

Disadvantages of Nuclear Power

The first disadvantage is that the uranium core is very unstable. As nuclear power

relies on the nuclear fission of uranium core, the process will release a lot of high

radiation. Take the accident in Fukushima as example, the leakage of high radiation

will cause great damage to surrounding environment and human beings. In the

accident of the Chernobyl disaster, there are many people that got cancers due to

exposure to high radiation (Greenpeace, 2016). In conclusion, if once disasters like

Fukushima and Chernobyl happened again and caused the malfunctioning of the

nuclear plant, it will cause huge damage to human race and the environment.

The next disadvantage is that there are currently no possible solutions in dealing

with nuclear waste. Although the nuclear plant can work for 40-60 years, the time of

its malfunctioning will still come at the end. At that time, how should human treat
those nuclear wastes? As there are no developed treatment yet, it is still not possible to

just bury the wastes like what we did to bury garbage. Irresponsible treatment of

nuclear waste will definitely cause great problem to humans and environment

(Greenpeace, 2016), and when we are not capable to deal with nuclear waste, it is the

best option to not to use it at first.

Another disadvantage of using nuclear power is that it may encourages nuclear

war and terrorism. Although nuclear can be use as energy resources, it can be used for

making weapons. In the World War II, America had thrown a nuclear bomb on

Hiroshima Japan, which cause unrecoverable damage to Japan until now. Therefore,

many countries have signed the peace treaty together to ban any usage of nuclear

weapons. Of course, there are exceptions in the world. Countries like North Korea

have been claiming that they have developed advanced nuclear technology and will

use it on America (BBC, 2017). Not just about countries, extreme terrorists like ISIS

may gain access easily to nuclear reactors and use it for nuclear attack since there are

more than 40 countries have civil nuclear power plan (Greenpeace, 2007). To

conclude, common use of nuclear energy will lead to easy access to ingredients of

nuclear weapons.
Opinion

Based on the above pros and cons of nuclear power, in my opinion I believe

that the cons of using nuclear power outweighs the pros of it, because of the safety

problem of nuclear plants, the possibility of better energy resources and the problem

of nuclear threat.

The first reason for that is due to the safety problem of nuclear plants. After the

accident of Fukushima, actually the safety and reliability of the protection facilities is

not that persuasive anymore. Failure in handling high radioactive substance is very

dangerous and can be lethal to the environment and human. Therefore, the

development of nuclear energy should be slower down or even being stopped before

there are any perfect solutions for handling nuclear core in a safer way. Others may

argue that the Fukushima accident is not caused by natural hazards directly, the

tsunami hit the electricity supply which caused the cooling system malfunctioning.

Therefore, it is not equal to that the protection facilities are not safe. However, the

cooling system is an essential part of the nuclear plant as failure of cooling system

caused the Fukushima accident, which means that the protection system is not perfect.

Therefore, before the facilities are ensured as safe enough, the use of nuclear power

should be stopped.
 The second reason for me to banning the use of nuclear power is the

possibilities of better energy resources. Although nuclear energy is very efficient and

effective in terms of generating electricity, it has its weakness like radioactive

substances and high construction costs. If that is the case, why not we also consider

other possibilities as well? Besides the more popular renewable energy like solar and

wind energy, there are other energy resources like hydropower, biofuel, tidal power

etc. It is bias and not necessary to just focus on the development of nuclear energy, so

that when there are more suitable energy resources discovered, nuclear energy should

be banned since it is not suitable to human as other resources.

The last reason for banning the use of nuclear power is due to the problem of

nuclear threat. At a time like now, the relationships between countries are very tensed

right now, partly is because of the nuclear threat caused by countries like North

Korea. It is safer to not keep developing nuclear energy at the moment. Some may

argue that the use of nuclear power is not same as having nuclear weapon. However,

there is one saying in Chinese “Neither adjust your shoe in a melon patch, nor your

hat under a plum tree.”, meaning that do not do any suspicious actions or things that

will be misunderstood under tensed circumstance. Of course having control of nuclear

energy does not mean that you have control of nuclear weapons, but it is better to

abandon nuclear energy in order to relieve the tension between countries.

Conclusion

To conclude, the use of nuclear energy is a very heated topic due to its related

incidents happened throughout decades, like the famous Chernobyl accident and the

nearer Fukushima accident. Through statistics, it is understood that nuclear power

does generates large amount of energy compare to other renewable energy. However,

human cannot completely control the use of nuclear power which is very worrying.

There are people who even misuse nuclear power for military use. If human still

cannot control nuclear power in a safer way, it is better to abandon it and try on other

renewable energy. This time maybe is just Fukushima, but once nuclear plants are

spread all over the world, there can be not just one Fukushima and Chernobyl at that

time.

References

BBC. (2017). North Korea's nuclear programme: How advanced is it? Retrieved May

06, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11813699

Greenpeace. (2007). Climate Change: Nuclear not The Answer. Attached in

 http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/

Greenpeace. (2016). End the Nuclear Age. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/

Nuclear Energy Institute. (2017a). Environment: Emissions Prevented. Retrieved May

06, 2017, from https://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-

Statistics/Environment-Emissions-Prevented

Nuclear Energy Institute. (2017b). World Statistics. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from

https://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics

Rinkesh. (2016). Advantages of Nuclear Energy. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from

http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/advantages_nuclearenergy.php

Schultz, I. (2012). Basic Economics of Nuclear Power. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph241/schultz2/

World Nuclear Association. (2017). Fukushima Accident. Retrieved May 06, 2017,

from http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-

security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx