Nuclear Power Persuasive Essay

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Chris Moody Mrs. Cummings Advanced Composition 17 September 2012 Nuclear Power “The report called nuclear technology costly, potentially exceeding $7,000 per installed kilowatt, which could make it twice as much as a scrubbed coal-fired plant or three times as expensive as a combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant,” stated Jim Hempstead the Vice President and Senior Credit Officer of Moody’s Investor Service. America should switch to wind and water power generating instead of disaster-lurking nuclear power. Nuclear power is unsafe for the environment, expensive for the economy and unpredictable accidents can occur. Understanding the effects of nuclear power can be difficult because people first need to learn how it is made. Uranium or Plutonium fuel pellets housed in a reactor vessel heat water to six hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The heated water travels to a steam generator which boils a secondary system of water causing it to form steam. The steam then travels to the generator and runs the turbine creating electricity. There are many steps in the process of nuclear power generation and they all have to be closely monitored (HowStuffWorks). Even though nuclear power plants have beyond multiple back-up system’s there is still a possibility of a plant malfunctioning and experiencing a full meltdown. There have been a total of eight partial melt downs in America alone, Three Mile Island being the worst. America’s structure rules for containment buildings around core reactors are more strict than Ukraine’s Chernobyl power plant. The Chernobyl meltdown caused up to four thousand deaths in the years after the environment was flooded with radiation. Childhood thyroid cancer and birth deformities are of the most common problems due to the high levels of radiation (What is Nuclear Energy). Nuclear power plant meltdowns can cause devastating effects on the

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