Nuclear Energy: A Harmful Clean Energy

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Introduction
To reduce the GHGs emissions and resolve the climate change is still a challenge, while the world is going to facing the running out of fossil fuels energy, yet the demand of energy keep increasing in these years. One efficient approach to solve the problem is to switch to the renewable energy or, nuclear energy indeed. The more people are hold against nuclear energy science the accident in Fukushima 2011, with stronger supporting to develop the renewable energy.
Compare to the renewable energy, the nuclear powers are used widely for decades with mature and applicable technology. Overall, more than 400 nuclear power plants operating in 30 countries, produced 2620 billion kWh, which supply 13.5% of the world’s electricity in year 2010 (T.N.&T.S., 2012). China decided to turn to nuclear power instead of natural gas and fossil fuel to meet the national electricity expansion – “mainland China has 20 nuclear power reactors in operation, 28 under construction, and more about to start construction”, says World Nuclear Association (2014).
Yet, the raw material of generate nuclear electricity, the uranium, is nonrenewable resource, and the nuclear plants brings negative impacts to the environment, which the essay elaborates below.
Discussion
Rationales of nuclear power
Nuclear energy, also known as atomic energy, became popular in the early 20th century. The atom held enormous capacity of energy - the uranium (uranium-238 and uranium-235) is formed into solid ceramic pellets packaged into long, vertical tubes for uses. In the reaction, the pellets are bombarded with neutrons, which causing the uranium atoms to split and release heat and neutrons, then the neutrons collide with other uranium atoms and release additional heat ...

... middle of paper ...

...: April 8, 2014.

Janna Palliser. 2012. Nuclear energy. Science Scope 35 (5): 14. Retrieved from: http://hkbu.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwTV27CgIxEAziFwha-wOB5Hb3ktTiYSPocVjY7d5u7Pz_0kQs_IEp58HAjHNHyjKy1hCk9nkw4RDZVqwAZMTfOaHbnK7PMt_p8cfm085t7L13y3ReThf_OwPwL6ToY23WWwYSGEHL0JCb1CvoCslG6994ihqFCXuxlEIRjFlEBTmXrBUObtvytH0AjUgmlA Accessed by: April 7 2014.

T.N. Srinivasan, T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj, Fukushima and thereafter: Reassessment of risks of nuclear power, Energy Policy, Volume 52, January 2013, Pages 726-736, ISSN 0301-4215. Retrieved from: http://0-dx.doi.org.hkbulib.hkbu.edu.hk/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.10.036. Accessed by：April 7 2014.

World Nuclear Association. 2014. Nuclear Power in China (Updated April 2014). Retrieved from: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Power/. Accessed by: April 10, 2014.

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