Alda Yuan
Professor Alexandratos
MHC 200
Week 12 Response
As to the debate, both sides did a great job of parsing words and defending their positions in a way that made it very hard to argue against. They used a strategy of giving in on certain points in order to take a stand on the more defensible ones. Interestingly enough, the result was that they ended up with positions that sounded so close together that had this been a real debate over a legislative matter for instance, a compromise could easily be reached. That to me says that the debate was carried out in a more constructive and meaningful way than most people go about the process of hashing out a dispute.
In general, nuclear power, whenever it is brought up, always causes controversy and heated discussion. It is hard to have a balanced debate for something so wrought with emotion on both sides of the question. It is hard additionally because there is a lot of evidence, both sensational and otherwise that each side can cite. For those who advocate in favor of nuclear energy, there are certainly a slew of studies and data supporting the position that it can solve all of our most pressing problems. Not only is it more efficient than fossil fuels, adopting nuclear energy on a large scale can drastically cut back on carbon emissions within a fairly short amount of time. The other side has only to point to incidents like that at Three Mile Island or of course, Chernobyl in order to generate support and muster up sympathy for their arguments. Just because it is a fairly obvious plea to emotion does not mean the argument possess no merit and just because it is mentioned so often does not mean that it does not remain a valid argument.
Indeed, it is important to note that nuclear energy, whether harvested to power homes or used to level cities, can be a real threat to human life. It is certainly valid to compare our plants and safety regulations favorably to those in place in the Soviet Union and Japan but at some level, these do not address the real problem. The real issue is that there will always be human elements we cannot account for and accidents we did not see coming. Airtight lines of reasoning can their loopholes, foolproof plans can be foiled, fail safes can themselves fail. But most of the time, a breakdown along these lines will not have catastrophic consequences. Despite the many mechanisms in place, it is nonetheless possible for one small mistake to harm the lives of a huge amount of people. Of course, in most instances, it will be calculated that the odds of such mistakes occurring are low. And indeed, it might very well be but even low odds have to be considered when the costs could be so high.
Despite this, I am of the opinion that nuclear power can be a useful alternative, but only if it is thought of and designed to be a temporary solution to the permanent problem of high energy demand from countries both developed and otherwise. While it is true that other methods, like the retrofitting of homes, can be used to something of the same effect, they lack the concrete financial incentives of allowing private companies to help build, run and oversee nuclear plants. This is one area in which I think bureaucracy would be a boon. Having a variety of supervising committees and groups providing oversight will help to ensure maximum safety.
Old facilities like Indian Point should be phased out in favor of newer plants, ideally in areas as far away from population density as possible. This of course also becomes a monetary issue, as all things will. But if we are to indeed employ nuclear energy, no corners can be cut and no shortcuts taken for the potential costs are too high.
