This debate was surprisingly interesting to me. I had a huge organic chemistry exam the next day, so I assumed my mind would have been fuddled with that and not concentrating on the debate. That wasn’t the case; either my brain needed a desperate break from anything organic or the debate was genuinely interesting. I like to think it was the latter.
I entered the debate already knowing that I was going to side with Ben and Dan. Every time I hear the word ‘nuclear’ I can’t help but think ‘extremely harmful.’ But Simon and Demetra brought up some good points that I didn’t know about. For example, they mentioned that 25% of our energy here in the city comes from nuclear energy. So 25% of our energy comes from Indian Point, a nuclear power plant that had to shut down multiple times in order to fix something that could potentially cause huge harm to millions, as Ben and Dan said. I understand that a good chunk of our energy comes from this plant, but if it continuously has to be closed down, is it worth it? One day it may cause damage before they’re able to close it down, such as during an earthquake. What will happen then?
Another thing that bothered me throughout this debate was how the con side very easily disregarded the effects nuclear waste can have, because the amount created is so small. And if the nuclear power plant is created and functions correctly, it won’t cause any damage at all. I mean, how many times have we heard that? I feel maybe it would have been best for them to go into more detail here. From what I’ve read online, as of now this country has around 60,000 tons of radioactive waste. This is not the 1 kg Demetra and Simon mentioned. If we use even more nuclear power than usual, there will obviously be more nuclear waste. We tend to only worry about the consequences of our decisions only after the decision has been made, which I’m afraid will probably happen in this situation. Do we know what will happen if much more nuclear energy is used? I feel there will obviously be more accidents occurring, along with successes. It will cost more money to make sure everything is safe and sound, and in the past companies always preferred the cheaper option. What will guarantee that the nuclear power plants that will either be redone or created will actually be safe? The government? I assume many companies will not like that idea. What is their definition of ‘safe’ anyways?
I understand from what the class was discussing after the debate that once we tap into the nuclear resources under the water in the oceans, we’ll have an unlimited amount of nuclear energy. I find that weird, that something in the Earth can be unlimited when we’re so used to its resources being limited, but I’ll take your word for it! Still, it produces waste that we have not figured out how to reuse. I’ve read that France is in the process of doing that (of course) while we were stopped thanks to Carter! J I feel if we are going to continue with this energy source, we need to figure out how to make it 100% clean, which means using its wastes. But even then, I feel it is a waste of money to figure out how to properly use nuclear energy over trying to figure out solar energy. We should first do the latter, then try and use other sources of energy. But only when we’re sure we are not going to be in an energy crisis. I agree with Ben and Dan that we should close down Indian Point and work on finding greener energy. With no nuclear power plant, it will force the city to find another energy source, thus having them work harder on finding a greener solution.
