Many people view nuclear power as being dangerous to society. I personally think it’s beneficial to our world. The more nuclear power we have, the less we can rely on gas and oil. Sure, it can be dangerous, but it’s worth it in the long run. The meltdown in Japan was nothing but a minor setback. The advantages of having nuclear power offset the risks any day. As long as there is proper safety guidelines a disaster can be averted. The reason Japan had so much trouble with their reactors is because they were not adequately prepared to handle such an event. Surely, after this occurring, all the power plants will be inspected and if necessary, remodeled. There will undoubtedly be no more events such as this for a time to come. The worst event in history involving nuclear power was the Chernobyl meltdown. A nuclear reactor in the Ukraine went critical and destroyed an entire city. Several thousand people died. That put a huge shadow over the nuclear community. Nuclear power was just beginning to become prominent all over the world when this crisis occurred. Now, many countries have halted the construction of all nuclear plants. This is unfortunate; given nuclear power could be the key to breaking our addiction to oil. If we could just get the world to support nuclear power again, we could be heading towards energy independence.

There are two types of nuclear power, fusion and fission. Fusion is the type currently used today. It’s not efficient and requires radioactive materials. On the other hand, fission is a very clean method of nuclear reactions. Although it is very had to produce, it creates more energy and burns much cleaner than fission. If fission was able to be implemented into energy production, all the worlds’ energy problems would be solved. Unfortunately, fission is very hard to recreate and cannot be done productively with our given technology. If we were able to master fission, it would open up a world of possibilities.