The Largest Debate of the Modern World: Fossil Fuels vs. Nuclear Power
When man first walked the Earth, animals which we now only hear of in textbooks roamed the planet. Green, luscious forests stretched for thousands of miles, harboring the strangest, yet most beautiful collection of flora. Where are these places today? Where are the marvelous animals and plants we learn about in science class? The answer – extinct, completely wiped off the face of the Earth. It is almost as if they were never there in the first place. What could have been the cause of that? What has the potential to do such a horrid thing? Fortunately or unfortunately, we know the answer to that too – fossil fuels. For decades now, fossil fuels have been the primary source of energy obtainment in practically every country. The burning of coal, wood, and oil have proven beneficial in our attempts to power civilization, yet hazardous to the environment and even our own health. It is this very act, which we rely on so heavily, that has killed and will continue to kill so long as it thrives. Scientists have attempted to come up with alternative methods of energy obtainment, but the yield produced by such methods pale in comparison to that of fossil fuels. The only other potential option is one that can result in severe consequences of its own – nuclear power. Energy obtainment by means of nuclear power is safe for the environment. It is clean, and it is reliable. It seems to have no prominent effect on human health. What’s more – it is even more efficient than the burning of fossil fuels! Unfortunately there is an issue when it comes to the use of nuclear power, and it is a big one indeed. Attempts to harness nuclear power in the past have resulted in severe explosions, and the death of hundreds of people. Now the controversy stands – do we continue damaging our environment with the burning of fossil fuels, or do we make the switch to nuclear power, despite the potential dangers it presents?
Why Do We Rely so Heavily on Fossil Fuels?
The controversy in the use of fossil fuels lies in the fact that despite their extreme toxicity, they are so incredibly advantageous. According to statistics, fossil fuels are among the cheapest sources of fuel in the world. The methods by which we extract them from the Earth are also incredibly efficient due to modern technology, reducing the overall cost of the extraction process. In the present day, this reduction in cost makes the extraction of fossil fuels cheaper than the installation of wind and solar technologies (Rinkesh, 2017). In addition to saving money, fossil fuels also promote economic health by providing money. Oil firms, for example, make billions of dollars every year selling the oil that they produce. Companies in countries all around the globe experience this success with oil because it is such a highly demanded form of fuel. Additionally, due to the high demand of oil and natural gas, there are approximately 9.8 million jobs in the United States alone that exist in the industry. That is an incredible 5.6% of total U.S. employment (API, 2020). Looking through the lens of economic prosperity, the absence of fossil fuels would be extremely detrimental to not only the United States, but also other countries which rely on them so heavily for energy production. Taking away the need for oil and natural gas extraction would suddenly render a massive portion of the American workforce unemployed – a whopping 5.6% to be exact. In the present day, countless environmental awareness groups fight against the use of fossil fuels, but they fail to realize the severe consequences that our economy will face upon giving them up. These groups promote the use of clean energy – a reference to nuclear energy – yet they do not take into account that nuclear power plants only require somewhere between 500 to 1000 workers to function. At peak construction, which typically occurs during the building phase of a nuclear reactor, the maximum number of available jobs at a power plant is a mere 3,500 (NEI, 2020). Nuclear power companies claim that the nuclear industry is an excellent one for the creation of jobs, but in comparison to the work generated by the extraction of fossil fuels, there is simply no comparison.
Why Can’t We Just Give Up Fossil Fuels Entirely?
Aside from the many advantages provided by fossil fuels, there is also a major reason as to why we cannot simply give them up. To put it simply, there is far too much coal, oil, and gas for us to burn safely, and so giving up fossil fuels would require us to leave them in the ground. According to a popular media article written by Duncan Clark, leaving fuel in the ground could very well be the crux of the global warming issue. According to Clark, “…climate doesn’t know or care how much renewable or nuclear energy we’ve got, how efficient our cars and homes are, how many people there are, or even how we run the economy. It only cares how much globe-warming pollution we emit – and that may be curiously immune to the measures we usually assume will help” (Clark, 2017). In other words, leaving fossil fuels in the ground will not be an effective counter against global warming. As a matter of fact, Clark suggests that leaving them in the ground could eventually result in a global increase in temperature of 4 degrees Celsius. While it may not sound like much, an increase in global temperature by that amount has the potential to cause “a collapse in global food production, catastrophic droughts and floods, heatwaves and the beginning of ice-sheet melt that could eventually raise the sea level enough to wipe out many of the world’s great cities” (Clark, 2017). Abandoning fossil fuels will not make the issue of climate change suddenly disappear. Abandoning fossil fuels will also result in the loss of work for millions of people, and severely damage the American economy. Environmental preservation groups push for nuclear energy despite the low employment power plants offer. Could the benefits of nuclear energy truly outweigh the circumstances revolving around the use of fossil fuels?
Nuclear Energy
Figure 1: Hippie, B.H. (February, 2020). Technology and Engineering Teacher (Vol. 79, Issue 5)
Nuclear energy is referred to by many as “clean” energy due to the information presented in figure 1. When discussing the hazards caused by fossil fuels, scientists emphasize carbon profiles as the primary issue. The higher the carbon profile, the more carbon is emitted into the atmosphere, and the more damage is caused to the surrounding environment. Fossil fuels emit an extraordinarily high amount of carbon into the atmosphere, with the average coal plant releasing 2,200 pounds every single hour. Natural gas plants, as evident from the figure 1, emit an additional 1,100 pounds of carbon every hour. Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, do not emit any carbon profile whatsoever (Hippie, 2020). There is no argument in the idea that nuclear energy is the best candidate for energy obtainment with environmental preservation in mind. Not only is it clean and therefore safe for the environment, it is also able to “produce large quantities of power” (perhaps even more so than fossil fuels) (Hippie, 2020). The controversy between the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy would not exist if not for one major fear revolving around the use of the latter.
Chernobyl and Fukushima
Figure 2: B. Craven. The Future of Clean Energy? (Political Cartoon)
“On Friday, 25 April 1986, workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant began to power down Reactor no. 4 in preparation for a safety test. In the early morning hours of Saturday, 26 April 1986, after the test finally began, the reactor spun out of control, there was an explosion, and a fire broke out” (Doucette, 2019). Workers at the lant were rushed to hospitals on this day and were told that they were experiencing some sort of reaction to chemical exposure, although this was far from the truth. What the plant workers were really experiencing was radiation poisoning. When Chernobyl received word that radiation levels were astronomically high in the area, thousands of people had to be evacuated. In Japan in 2011, a similar explosion occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant, caused by the failure of cooling units after they were hit by a large tsunami (Doucette, 2019). The problem with nuclear energy is that it is quite unpredictable. Failure to operate a plant, whether caused by a man-made mistake or a natural disaster such as a tsunami, will have catastrophic consequences – not only for the people in the area but for the environment as well. To add on to the issue, radiation doesn’t just disappear in a matter of days or weeks. Certain radioactive isotopes have half lives of 30 years or more, which means that an area can be polluted and thus rendered uninhabitable for generations (Doucette, 2019). As evident from figure 2, the main problem with nuclear energy lies in the fear of the general public. Scientists may claim that it is clean and reliable, but to the general public, disasters of the past have made nuclear energy appear as the hideous monster it is in the political cartoon – unpredictable, deadly, and something to be feared.
When Will This Controversy Come to an End?
In the present day, there is a great deal of research going into methods of energy obtainment. Currently, we are heading towards irreversible climate – related consequences, due to our use of fossil fuels. Clearly, we will have to begin depending on cleaner forms of energy. Nuclear power is the only alternative that can match or even exceed the production of energy by means of fossil fuels, but the public simply isn’t ready to take that risk. Personally, I believe that all we can do now is slowly make a shift towards cleaner energy, and slowly cut back on fossil fuels. We cannot entirely give up on fossil fuels just yet because of the potential economic and environmental consequences; however, we can limit the amount of carbon released into the environment by relying more on solar, wind, or hydro power. In conjunction with this, more nuclear power plants could be built in locations that aren’t so densely populated. These plants would be strategically placed in areas where the risk of natural disaster is low, so as to prevent potential repetitions of Chernobyl and Fukushima. As long as we do this correctly and efficiently while cutting back slightly on the use of fossil fuels, I truly believe we can temporarily preserve this planet we call home. Eventually, of course, an alternative energy source will have to be utilized to permanently stop climate change. All we can do now is research and experiment, and work collectively to preserve environmental health.
References
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