As the world population rises, the energy consumption and demand has been skyrocketing ceaselessly. The urbanization of countries requires the contribution of energy for advanced technology and generating commodities. The major global energy consumption are oil, coal and gas (BBC Bitesize, 2018) , which consider as non-clean energy. When focusing the attention on sustainable development, clean energy became the fundamentals of the energy matrix (Pao, Li & Fu, 2014). The emergence of nuclear power entirely attains the goal of a consistent and effective economic development, with a zero pollution emission source (Samuel & David, 2010). This essay will manifest nuclear power is a game changer through illustrating why it is a key role in the reduction of greenhouse gas, the derivation of nuclear power and the lasting impact of nuclear power in environmental and technological factor.
Nuclear power balance between the economic development and protection of the environment by reducing the emission of greenhouse gas. Traditional fuels such as fossil fuels and coal, generate energy by combustion, as a consequence Carbon Dioxide (CO2) will emit. For nuclear reactor, it generates and produce energy from nuclear fission. The chain reaction of splitting uranium-235 isotope create a lot of heat, that the steam in the pressurised water reactor will push the turbine to generate energy (World-nuclear.org, 2018). In the whole process, no carbon dioxide will be generated, with a huge amount of energy can be produced. According to the paper from NASA’s Goddard Institute authored by Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013), points out that 64 gigatons (Gt) CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning that can be prevented by using nuclear power. Nuclear power has prevented a calamity man-made global warming from burning fossil fuels and provided a stable supply of energy (Kurzgesagt, 2015).
Nuclear power was originally used for an effective weapon in World War 2, the atomic research was developed by a group of scientist led by Enrico Fermi. The code of the work was named as the Manhattan Project. After the World War 2, the president of the United Nation, President Eisenhower, promised the assessment of nuclear power for peaceful purpose (U.S. Department of Energy,1995). Starting in early 1970s, when Middle East war was sparked, the oil prices were soaring worldwide. Over 50% of nuclear reactor were built during 1970 to 1985 (Kurzgesagt, 2015). Over 60 years, the technology of the new nuclear reactor become more mature. Base on the safety functions which are control reactivity, cool the fuel and contain radioactive substances. The new reactor that being launched would achieve the optimum nuclear safety (World-nuclear.org, 2018), extra practices were deployed to prevent the leakage of radioactive reactants. With the support of the advanced engineering, scientific research and the avocation of nuclear power, nuclear power has become the pillar of economic development (U.S. Department of Energy, 1995).
The sustainability and comprehensiveness of nuclear power achieved in different situation and thus create the lasting impact. Nuclear power would keep us away from disease by protecting our air quality as its zero-emission nature. Compared to fossil fuels, which may produce harmful pollutants such as Nitrogen oxide (NOx), Sulphur dioxide (SO2),suspended particles. Emission of these toxic substances would seriously harm the environment by causing acid rain, photochemical smog and dust. (“NEI”, 2018)
With the use of nuclear power, the aforementioned gases would not be emitted, thus the air pollution can be mitigated. Nuclear power would not generate CO, SO2 and NOs which regarded as the main factor lead to turbid air. These harmful elements in fossil fuels may trigger diseases, including asthma, respiratory cancer and lung diseases. Theoretically, up to 1.8 million deaths were prevented between 1971 and 2009 (Hansen & Kharecha, 2018). For technological aspect, nuclear power is the cheapest way to generate energy, it only cost 80%of the fossil fuel power plants and 50% of wind power plants
(Samuel & David, 2010). And the nuclear power has benefited the human lives in board directions, nuclear power can be adopted to medicine, industry, science, food and military (U.S. Department of Energy, 1995). For instance, the nuclear technology can be used to eradicate plagues that might produce deadly diseases (Samuel & David, 2010), and to diagnose the vitamin deficiency and bone diseases in Latin America. Nuclear power was able to increase people’s quality of life together with the contribution to the power generation. The legacy effect was beneficial to both developed and developing countries.
Nuclear power was a game changer that it was a key player in power generation industry. Since the emergence of nuclear power, urbanization and modernization were not polar to the environment. Instead, nuclear power reliably mitigates the greenhouse gases and global warming by generating the clean energy steadily. The prospect of nuclear power was in line with sustainable development and to facilitate the pace of civilization.