Why should i be against Nuclear Energy?

Question

we are doing a debate in school, and i am on the againts side. Tell me why i should be please.

Answer 1

Hi! Nuclear energy is awesome, but, to answer your question and get points I will help you with your debate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Concerns_about_nuclear_power

Just go to that link, and read the concerns section. It talks about all the major concerns and is a very good article overall.

Best of luck!

Answer 2

The number 1 draw back is the waste materials yielded by a reactor remain extremely lethal for 10's of thousands of years and no fail safe way of containing and storing exists or is likely to ever exist and continuing to put the cart before the horse in this fashion is irresponsible.
So your first resource should be a Yahoo search for " Nuclear waste disposal" so you have a good handle on the particulars on that score.
The second reason is the danger the plants themselves present When they build them they always champion how safe they are and how according to their calculations the chances of a melt down or major radiation leak are astronomically unlikely but the records show that these astronomical odds have beat them repeatedly, so you should also have a good working knowledge of actual radiation leaks and near misses and there have been several besides Chernoble and 3 mile island.
The 3rd draw back is that a Nuclear plant presents a very desirable and potentially disastrous military target to our adversaries.
A 4 th. draw back is the costs of selling the idea of building the plant to the public , building the plant, maintaining the plants safely, and disposing of the wastes in rhetrospect to the limitations of time and decay on a plants viable safe operational lifetime. The argument here is that even if there are no mishaps in the lifetime of the plant the potential sum total of returns before obsolescence may not hold up from an economical stand point.
Check out the Economic history of the Trojan Nuclear plant in Saint Helens Washington for some insights into the economical implications.
Good luck , If you Know your facts and stick to your guns I would loath to be on the Pro side of your upcoming class debate.
They are going to get hammered.
I suppose if this is a debate class worth it's salt you would be required to debate the pro side on the next round.
Given that fate what I would do would take it over the top to the point of tounge in cheek satire as exemplified in The Colbert(e ) report(e).

Answer 3

There is no reason to be against NE. None. TMI and Chernobyl are the result of 40-year-old unsafe designs that have been completely eradicated from the industry. The amount of waste produced by NE is 1/1000th the waste (both by-products and globally-damaging emissions) that you get from coal, oil, or natural gas sources for electricity. The only less-polluting forms of energy are solar, wind and hydro. The facility that the US has created in Nevada to collect and safely store all of our (currently widespread) stockpiles of nuclear waste is big enough to handle another 200 years of waste at current production levels. Building another facility when this country wakes up and realizes that what we've got isn't working is a piece of cake.

IMO, there's no reason to not like Nuclear and arguments from people who don't are either so dated as to be irrelevant or just plain scientifically ignorant.

Answer 4

the residues of NE are not like a candy wrapper that can be disposed of casually dear...the potential for harm to every / any / all life on earth exists in the by-products of NE waists...it 'dies' in half lives...meaning it's contaminate factors will still be present in 10, 20, 30,000 years from now...and regardless of popular conceptions, there IS a great deal of contamination created in the process of producing , using, and disposing of the waist, and all that it has come ito contact with..
NE is a moral question,..as well as an environmental one.

Answer 5

look up T.M.I. (three mile island) in Pennsylvania and trenoble Russia. this will give you everything you need......PS i am for nuclear energy but this are great examples of what can go wrong...

Answer 6

they don't know what to do with the nuclear waste, it stays radioactive for thousands of years.

Answer 7

Nuclear energy can be misused to kill people.

Answer 8

becuase of the radiation damage it has and the wastes that it produces.