Name of Writer

Name of Institution

Nuclear Power

Date

Nuclear Power

Introduction

Nuclear power was introduced as a civilian energy source in 1954, after having been initially used by the US as a destructive weapon against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The product of Admiral Rickover's dream of seeing nuclear power produce energy for peaceful purposes, this new energy source was quickly adopted in the United States and soon after around the world. Deemed a feasible and long lasting source of energy worldwide due to the high energy content of Uranium, the main fuel used in the fission process, nuclear power has the potential to replace conventional energy generating facilities using fossil fuels, eliminate dependence on foreign imports of fossil fuels in resource-poor countries (i.e. oil, gas, coal) for energy production as well as to curtail global warming by eliminating CO2 and other greenhouse gases emissions into the atmosphere. Despite dire opposition by environmentalists and public citizen groups, especially after accidents at Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in the Ukraine, nuclear energy has continued to grow since its inception, albeit inconsistently over the decades, demonstrating increased performance and efficiency. Today it is a major source of energy, supplying 20 percent of US' and 14 percent of the world's electricity in 2009 (Bryce, 2010).

Discussion

Nuclear power has been around for over half a century, and is ever present in our everyday lives in the Western world, and increasingly in China, India and other developing countries.6 In policy analyses, environmental arguments, including the climate change debate, nuclear power is often mentioned. There are pro-arguments to why nuclear power should be used, and counter-arguments on why it is too risky or costly for us to consider an expansion of the industry. Though the US Navy and others, including the Russians, the French, the British and the ...