Advantages Of Nuclear Energy

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Should Malaysia use nuclear energy as a source to produce electricity Introduction Electricity is definitely one of the huge source that drives mankind to a better and improved future. At this current era, most of the equipment we human uses in our daily life requires electricity. From the water boiler we use to make our coffee early in the morning, to the car we use as transport to our workplace, to the laptop we use during our work, to the mobile phone we check every half an hour. All the above requires some amount of electricity. According to the data obtain from worldbank.org, the electric power consumption had increase dramatically from 2862 kWh per capita in year 2005 to 4345 kWh per capita in year 2014 (The world bank, 2014). It’s a…show more content…
With the reduction of carbon dioxide and methane in the environment, the greenhouse effect will be lowered. (Green world investor, 2015) Besides that, nuclear energy is much powerful and efficient compare to fossil fuels. With the same mass of nuclear fuels and fossil fuels, the amount of energy generated through nuclear is few thousand times more compared to fossil fuels. For nuclear fuels having such high energy density, it leads to lower cost and hence cheaper electricity. Besides that, it will also be easier for the transportation of the nuclear fuel. Compared to other energy generating method such as wind or solar powers that require specific wind speed or weather to optimize the power generated, nuclear power is much reliable for it being able to run under any weather or climate. Just like fossil fuels, the amount of nuclear fuel is finite. However, the supply for nuclear fuels is much higher compared to fossil fuels. According to Steve Fetter, dean of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, the nuclear fuels available can sustain us for another 60,000 years (Fetter,S,…show more content…
According to Union of Concerned Scientists, a 2009 UCS report had estimated the cost for a new nuclear plant construction in 2008 is 9billion dollars per unit (Union of concerned scientists, 2015). With inflations and Malaysia economy, it is safe to guess a minimum of 15billion dollars will be required to build a new nuclear plant in the year 2015. Another disadvantage of nuclear energy is the safety issues that comes with it. With disasters such as Chernobyl and the more recent Fukushima incident, people have been putting more efforts and better technologies to prevent it to happen again. However, a devastating effect may occur just because of a small radiation leak. Short term effect such as nausea, vomiting and fatigue can be observed due to radiation. However long term effect to people who work or live near the power plants had yet to be confirmed. One of the major disadvantage of nuclear energy is the ultimate way to deal with radioactive waste is yet to be
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