Nuclear Power is a Dangerous Waste of Time :: Argumentative Essays, Persuasive Essays

Nuclear power has been around since the first atomic plant was made operational on December 2, 1942. These plants are an efficient way of producing electricity. They set up power every electric item we use today, from TVs to computers and every thing in between. As great as they may seem, how do we deal with the hot waste left over? The answer is, we dont. Until we, as a civilization, find a better way of dealing with this waste, we should stomach off on converting fossil fuel plants to nuclear.As of today, there is no real way to dispose of nuclear waste. While theories of ridding our earth of this harmful hot substance vary, the many attempts, have included every thing from simply burying it, to sending it out of our orbit into space. The most popular method to fight seems to be long term storage. But what, exactly, does the long term storage mean? It means storing air tight barrels of nuclear waste in facilities until they lose their potency. As good as this method may sound on paper, the process Ive just described to you can take up to 20,000 years. This means that the waste storage facilities forget have to be secured from robbers, terrorists, and the effects of nature for a period of time in which not only their designers will die, but also, quite possibly the countries in which they are located will crumble.Other, more reasonable methods include transmutation a process in which poisonous elements are transformed into less toxic substances. For instance, plutonium can be turned to uranium. This is done by using fast consumer reactors, which use the discarded radioactive isotopes of nuclear reactors and consume them, leaving isotopes which are less dangerous and have only about half the life and potency of the original waste.