Nuclear Power Will Save the Environment

The Environmental Problem

Global warming is getting major play these days. We read about it every day in newspapers, see it on TV. Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth rocked the world over the summer of 2006. The problem, most people are saying seems to be very real. If we keep up what we are doing, the earth is going to continue to warm with potentially disastrous effects.

And just what are these effects? Increases in extreme weather, such as hurricanes. The melting of the polar ice caps, which will raise the world's ocean levels, completely destroying billions of miles of our the earth's coastal regions, islands, etc. They will all be submerged under water. The melting ice caps could even, in fact, cool down the earth's temperature rapidly and thrust into another ice age.

The Need for Alternative Energy

Environmentalists say that the only solution to bring global warming to its knees is the creation of an alternative energy source that will no longer create greenhouse gases. Solar power, wind power, hydrogen fuel cells: these are all things which need to be studied so as to be made viable and put into use, so that we can cease the pollution of our atmosphere.

If we can reduce the production of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is believed that we can halt the problem in its tracks and work to reduce these gases which are already in existence, thus returning the earth to its normal balance.

But there is something that it seems most of these environmentalists are ignoring. We already have a source of clean energy which produces no air pollutants. It is tested and verified and is a viable source of power for our planet that can do away with the production of greenhouse gases. It is nuclear energy.

Why Nuclear Energy?

Solar power, hydroelectric power, wind power, have been proven as somewhat effective in the production of energy. However, the problem with these energy sources lies in the fact that they are rather limited. There is a limit to how much energy they can produce, and they can only produce energy in certain areas. Solar power generation works pretty well when you are in the middle of a desert with no clouds and a whole lot of sunshine, but most of us don't live in the middle of the desert. We see similar problems with hydroelectric energy and wind power.

Other alternative forms of energy are still theoretical at best and could take years of even decades to bear fruit, if they ever do. If what the environmentalists are saying about the future of our planet is true, we just can't wait that long.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, is a proven viable source of energy production. Commercial nuclear power plants have been in existence for 50 years. They have the highest safety record of any method of electrical production, and since they derive their power from nuclear fission rather than the burning of fossil fuels, there is no air pollution whatsoever.

The only source of fuel required by nuclear power plants is uranium, which is abundant on the planet. Nuclear power plants are also very efficient in their creation of energy, and require relatively little amounts of uranium in order to function. This means that even environmental impacts from uranium mining will be far less than, say, coal mining.

Most important, however, is the fact that nuclear energy is already a proven technology. We can start building nuclear power plants immediately, across the globe, without having to waste years or decades or perhaps forever to find a clean burning alternative source of energy. If we really care about our planet, we must start building nuclear power plants on a large scale and we need to start now.

Hope for the Future

The fact of the matter is that when it comes to global warming and other environmental ills, time is not on our side. But time is exactly what we are asking for when we say it is time to "develop" alternative energies. Our source of alternative energy already exists, it is time that we started implementing it.

Does that mean that our future will be a nuclear one? No. Our immediate concern is limiting the creation of greenhouse gases. Once we have succeeded in doing that, we can take the time required to properly develop more efficient forms of fuel and energy production outside of nuclear power and be on our way to a cleaner and healthier future for all of us.