Nuclear power is one of the newest forms of energy, it uses a process called nuclear fission, which is typically taking apart uranium or plutonium atoms. Taking these atoms apart creates a great amount of heat and is used to spin a turbine to create electricity. The amount of electricity created by this process is remarkable, and the best part of all is that it’s clean. It is a zero carbon energy source which means it releases zero emissions into our already-damaged atmosphere. There are many more benefits of using nuclear power, but just these couple I’ve briefly mentioned are enough to make it clear nuclear power is the best clean energy source.

People like to discuss the safety of nuclear power plants, and I think it is very important for everyone to know just how safe nuclear power plants really are. Most people look at nuclear power plants and think back to incidents such as Chernobyl or Fukushima, but those incidents have been well documented and looked over drastically. At Chernobyl, technicians were being stupid and testing a dumb experiment which consisted of shutting off emergency safety and power-regulating systems. This made the reactor run on 7% power while technicians removed control rods from the core. This, combined with poor Soviet design, caused the reactor to melt down and explode (Chernobyl disaster, np).

Fukushima exploded for a whole other reason, first an earthquake occurred, then a tsunami knocked out the cooling systems. Since the Fukushima incident in 2011, safety has never been safer. Better technology has been made to ensure this does not happen again.

Another beautiful advantage of using nuclear power is the reliability. Nuclear power plants can run day and night, at any time, opposed to solar power only being able to run while the sun is out. This means energy production non-stop without any delays in production, plants powered by natural gas or coal generate electricity only about half the time. Nuclear power plants generate electricity 92.3% of the year (Rhodes, np). It has been estimated that the amount of energy released in a nuclear fission reaction is ten million times greater than the amount of energy released when burning fossil fuels (Nuclear energy pros and cons, np). Nuclear power plants use around 27 tons of uranium in a year, opposed to coal plants using hundreds of millions of tons of coal (How is uranium made into nuclear fuel?, np). Power plants can be made almost anywhere, opposed to wind farms needing specific locations where there’s a lot of wind. They also don’t take up as much space, wind farms can require up to 360 square miles of land. Nuclear power plants take up just over one square mile, that’s a huge difference. The reactor rods used to actually make electricity can be used for over 5 years and still have over 90% the energy inside them.

Also, the cost of operation is one of the lowest in the industry. It’s true, building a nuclear power plant is very expensive, but after you get past that bump it pays for itself in time. Nuclear power is actually one of the most cost-effective energy sources available (The Pros & Cons of Nuclear Energy: Is it safe?, np). As a plus, fuel for nuclear power plants doesn’t fluctuate in price like coal and gas does, it’s easy to know how much it is going to cost. And we have enough of this fuel to last us 5 billion years and I think at that point, all of humanity will be extinct.

All of this is good, but let's look to the future. Technology for nuclear power is still evolving, and more and more ideas and upgrades are still to be made. We already have nuclear power plant designs that can make electricity as well as fuel for more electricity, and reactors that are able to reuse nuclear fuel. However, the U.S. does not currently reprocess and recycle nuclear fuel due to the risk of proliferation, and using the fuel to make nuclear weapons (3 Reasons Why Nuclear is Clean and Sustainable, np). France however does use this, and in fact over 70% of electricity in France comes from nuclear power plants. Some advanced nuclear reactor designs being developed could actually operate on used fuel.

But if we aren’t recycling it, then where does it go? Well used reactor rods can be stored in water for many years to shield its radioactivity, though they could remain radioactive for 10,000 years. The water it is stored in looks like a public pool, but it is safely stored away from the public, and it can’t do any harm.

Overall there has been improvement in almost every category, less fuel consumption, less waste production, and more cost-effectiveness. And the most exciting thing of all, if we can learn to control atomic fusion we could potentially have unlimited energy. But that doesn’t seem like anything we will see soon. Look towards the future!

In conclusion, nuclear power is the safest, most reliable, and most promising clean energy source available. Nuclear power plants release the least amount of radiation into the atmosphere compared to any other energy source, which is ironic because it deals with radioactive materials. The most important thing for most people would probably be the fact that it’s clean. And it is very important that we find an energy source that doesn’t hurt the environment, and nuclear power is obviously the best choice. Our planet has already been hurt enough by burning fossil fuels. At the rate we’re currently going, we will run out of coal in 132 years. And that may sound like a long time but it really isn’t too far away, like I’ve mentioned before we have enough uranium to last us 5 billion years. That’s why I think nuclear power is the best, and really only solution to the energy problem.