Nuclear Power Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Nuclear Power - Essay Example The problems that plague nuclear energy revolve around the materials it uses to create energy. Uranium is highly radioactive once it has been depleted all of its impurities in which is needed to power up nuclear reactors. Inside a nuclear reactor, the radioactivity is increased to more than a thousand times as a quantity of of the uranium is changed to a mixture of different irradiated elements. Most, if not all, of these radioactive elements are very hazardous to human beings because such materials are highly unstable to certain elements in the environment that either cause unexpected and damaging combustion or radioactive exposure or poisoning. The damages that could result from all this destroys not only the environment greatly; it also destroys human lives and welfare as well. There are many different ways through which people could be exposed to radiation such as inhalation of radioactive gases or particles, some radioactive elements found in the soil or water, eating or drinking of food, water or dust that are contaminated. Some radioactive elements mimic normal chemical elements in the ecology and make blend in with the food chain, poisoning the whole ecosystem. In contemporary and even recent human history, there are two events that show such sort of damage and hazard the risks of nuclear energy can do. First, there was the Chernobyl Accident in 1986 in Pripyat, Ukraine. Then, there was the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor in North Japan at 2011. At 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor had a catastrophic explosion that completely destroyed the power facility and caused massive amounts of radioactive materials to spread throughout Europe, especially seriously damaging life and the environment of what was then the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR. A forum by the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA (2005) stated that â€Å"the vast majority of about 5 million people residing in contaminated areas of Belarus,