In my opinion nuclear power is an effective and safe option for producing energy. For the most part, nuclear reactors are environmentally friendly, they do not produce gasses like carbon dioxide or methane so they make much less greenhouse gasses and air pollution than other ways of making energy like coal, oil and gas. And, in the modern world where global warming and air pollution is a major problem, it is very important to use clean energy. A major arguing point for why Nuclear Energy is harmful to the environment is that the fuel that gets used up (nuclear waste) takes a very long time to decay, and can greatly harm the environment if the nuclear waste is illegally dumped into the environment. But this can easily be prevented if the Nuclear Waste is properly contaminated in a proper location. Also, as technology progresses we will find new, more effective ways of containing and getting rid of nuclear waste. Nuclear Energy is also cost effective, although it costs a lot to initially build a nuclear reactor, it is cheap to run it and the total cost is much cheaper than gas, oil and coal plants. Uranium is also much more energy efficient than coal and oil. 1 kg of coal can only generate 8 kWh, 1 kg of oil can generate 12 kWh of heat, and 1 kg of uranium-235 can generate 24,000,000 kWh of heat. As you can see, uranium is about 3,000,000 times more effective than coal.

Another big arguing point against nuclear power, is that an accident could happen which could have a devastating impact on the environment and any people that could be living around the nuclear power plant. Some famous examples of this is the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in 1986, and the Fukushima disaster which occurred in 2011. But these disasters only occurred because of bad staff management. The Chernobyl disaster happened because a station blackout simulation went wrong because of reactor design flaws and the reactor operators not following guidelines. And the Fukushima disaster occurred because the plant operator had failed to meet basic safety regulations. So, a well built reactor with a good staff that follows safety guidelines would have a very low chance of a catastrophic accident. Nuclear power is also very good for the local economy. It strengthens the local economy by providing jobs and through taxes. An average power plant pays about $40,000,000 annually to the workers. Each year a power plant pays around $67,000,000 in federal taxes, and $16,000,000 in local taxes, which helps schools and local infrastructure. The nuclear energy industry also creates many jobs, in the USA the industry makes 100,000 jobs. The jobs range from welders, to health physicists, to chemists.

In conclusion, the benefits of nuclear power far out weigh the disadvantages, and we should be more open to nuclear energy because when the alternative is coal and oil energy, which harms our already weakened environment, the clear winner is nuclear energy.