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The Guilfordian

The student news site of Guilford College

The Guilfordian

The student news site of Guilford College

The Guilfordian

What is Nuclear Progress anyway?

Cooling Towers of Three Mile Island (www.corbis.com)
Cooling Towers of Three Mile Island (www.corbis.com)

We all know what happens with nuclear power. The dangerous toxic waste always leaks somewhere, no matter how hard the powers that be try to keep it from doing so, and then a three-eyed fish, cancerous tumors or flesh-eating toxic zombies are created. The myths of radiation-induced superpowers have been dispelled; we now know nuclear radiation is extremely hazardous, and does not give you superhuman abilities.
In 1998, German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder promised to phase out nuclear power. On Nov. 14 Germany made a pledge to put its nuclear power plants off-line.
Germany is setting a great example, but it isn’t for everyone. For example, one of Germany’s neighbors, France, gets almost 75 percent of its power from nuclear energy. The Germans are, however, taking steps to make our world much safer for everyone.
There are flaws. The German law has placed a 32-year lifespan on nuclear plants and banned reactor construction. The phase-out will take until 2020 at the least, which allows more than enough time for the conservative right in Germany to change the laws.
The Germans are also not trying to lead by example, making no international declaration against nuclear power. Their reasons, according to Environmental Minister Juergen Trittin, are more economic than environmental, and are not even governmentally economic, which implies it would be more economically rewarding for the German people to build new power plants for burning gas and wind/solar plants.
But let’s not yet discount nuclear energy, which has seemed doomed since Chernobyl. The cost of fossil fuels like natural gas and oil are rising. The amount of energy consumption in the next 50 years is likely to double. Plus, energy prices around the world are on the rise, and has everyone forgotten the ozone layer’s depletion?
Nuclear energy was once seen as the power for the future because it does not create dangerous greenhouse gases, and is cheap compared to its competitors.
So what about the United States? We stopped building nuclear power plants following 1979’s Three Mile Island incident putting us 24 years ahead of the Germans. U.S. citizens have the greatest fear of nuclear energy, and U.S. citizens were the pioneers of the anti-nuclear movement (though ours is far less active than Germany’s). The United States, however, despite the chance of zombies, stills relies upon over 100 nuclear power plants.
Nuclear powerhouse Russia lacks the money to afford the coal and natural gas that would be required to power their country and their own reserves are beginning to run low. They also suffer from rising energy consumption, which could be answered by nuclear plants.
I want to be against nuclear power; I really do. I understand the dangerous aspects of nuclear waste, but I can’t feel okay about denying a Russian family heat in the winter because I want to be liberal-minded. California has been having a horrible energy crisis, and nuclear power is cheaper than other methods and pollutes less than fossil fuels.
The alternatives of wind, solar and thermal power are more expensive and produce less power than other energy alternatives. They are also reliant upon the powers beyond the control of man: sometimes there is less wind or sun. On those days, what happens to the population that relies upon that fragile power source?
It’s not all hopeless. Scientists are finding and studying ways to deal with nuclear waste. One recent study has been able to turn nuclear waste into carbon gas, which can be used in gas power plants. It took the science community a while to figure out what could be done with uranium other than kill people, so I have faith that there is a solution. If the disposal of nuclear waste becomes a huge problem, put the waste on a rocket and shoot it at the sun; it won’t mind.Aaron DeMoss is a first-year.

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