My Nuclear Rant

For my AP Environmental Science class, I was asked to tell whether or not I thought a new nuclear reactor should be built at the North Anna Nuclear Plant. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the topic of nuclear power, thanks to the fact that I am taking AP Physics (best class choice I ever made). Here is my rant:

Yes, I think another nuclear reactor at the North Anna nuclear plant is a great idea. Nuclear power is highly efficient, pollutes much less than coal, and is just an overall safer way to get power. Also, we are going to run out of coal in the near future (which is fine, because coal is awful for the environment anyway), and nuclear power is a smart replacement for coal.

Some people are scared of nuclear power, thanks to the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters. The media focuses on the negative impacts of those catastrophes, and they don't know what they are talking about, alot of the time. Did you know that when a nuclear power plant is running at a Critical level, that means it is running EXACTLY HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO?! The news broadcasters don't. They hear the word 'critical', panic, broadcast their panic to the word, and it's a chain reaction. Also, nothing bad really happened at Three Mile Island. The public was never actually in danger. The plant simply released its trapped bubble of Xenon gas up into the atmosphere, where there is already tons of poisonous gas, floating harmlessly above us. And then everything was fine.

Chernobyl was caused because Soviet Russia cut corners, both in building the plant and in training its employees. When things inevitably started to go wrong, the untrained workers didn't know what to do, so of course things got out of hand. Then, the disaster was hidden from the world, and Russia tried some really hairbrained ways to clean up the mess (for example, they dropped liquid lead on the burning plant. The lead was then vaporized from the intense heat and shot into the atmosphere. So then, poof! Radioactive lead raining down on Europe as well). So of course Chernobyl was terrible and frightening. It’s not surprising that people are afraid to have something like that happen again. But it won’t happen as long as the proper safety precautions are taken.

Finally, some people will point fingers at the Fukushima plant in Japan, and claim that it was not built to withstand earthquakes. Well, here’s some news: it was. And it withstood a HUGE one, and a tsunami, in the same day. And there is sufficient proof that Fukushima, like Chernobyl, wasn’t completely up to date on its safety requirements either. It had been failing inspections for months, but somehow was still kept running. So once again, it’s not surprising that something went wrong when the plant was slammed with extreme natural disasters.

Nuclear power plants are built extremely safely, with tons of redundant safety precautions and backup generators for their backup generators.  They have a huge margin for error, and are built to withstand massive amounts of stress and extreme conditions. It would be a good idea to build a new reactor in North Anna, since our current reactor is a little outdated anyway. Then, we could be up to date on all the latest nuclear technology, and Virginia would be less reliant on a filthy polluting fossil fuel like coal.

Gosh I'm a nerd ^-^