The Viability of Nuclear Energy against Climate change

As it stands today, nuclear energy is on the decline due to public opinion and lack of interest.  Despite producing abundant electricity, much safer, cheaper, and environmentally friendlier than fossil fuel plants, lack of knowledge shreds the image of nuclear plants.  To people who know, nuclear energy is hailed for its low carbon emissions, high-capacity factor, and ability to produce baseload electricity.  However, nuclear energy has to fight an uphill battle to win over the public opinion.  

In an interview with two Cal Poly professors, Andrew Kean and Jacques Belanger, the professors concurred on both its merits and on the areas nuclear energy needs to work on.  Damage control on its public image needs to be conducted as soon as possible.  If there is lack of interest, there is lack of support.  With low support, there is less money for nuclear energy to stay up.  Nuclear energy suffers from a bad reputation and from an outside mentality that "one bad apple spoils the rest".  Out of hundreds of plants working smoothly over a long span of time, it takes very little to ignore all the good nuclear plants brought.  The Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents for example, have long plagued the minds of the public.  Anyone skeptical towards nuclear energy would bring up these accidents.  This is a fair criticism.  Meltdowns and accidents cause a lot of environmental damages and claim human lives.  It can't be ignored that when accidents occur, it is a life-threatening event. 

Nuclear energy has done a lot to tighten up security in power plants.  Standards have gone way up to prevent any reactor meltdowns or accidents.  Storing nuclear waste is safer than ever, and chances of an accident happening are the lowest it has ever been.  Nuclear energy has never been safer, but negative media coverage keeps people skeptical about a great alternative to fossil fuels.  Compared to fossil fuels, nuclear energy had much less casualties and accidents, even accounting for all three nuclear accidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima)!  Death tolls for nuclear energy add up to ninety deaths per thousand terawatt hours while death tolls for fossil fuel plants add up to 140,000 deaths per thousand terawatt hours!  Nuclear energy is far safer that what its being made out to be.  

Nuclear power still has a lot to offer to the planet.  Despite its downsides, nuclear energy is still very much needed.  As of today, nuclear energy is the one of the only alternative energy forms than can produce the minimum demand of electricity needed, or baseload electricity.  Nuclear energy can also store any excess electricity to use after peak hours or for emergencies.  Solar and wind power can't meet baseload electricity alone or reliably store energy in sub-optimal weather.  As aforementioned, nuclear energy also produces low carbon emissions, cheap baseload electricity, and is very safe.  

If nuclear energy can fix its perception with the public, this form of energy can be rescued and used as society transitions away from fossil fuels.  Nuclear energy may have its downsides and may not be the perfect solution to the climate change crisis, but it is still very much needed to eventually phase out the reliance on fossil fuels.  Nuclear energy is a great source of electricity and can become very viable for the future if it can fix its bad public perception.

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