Nuclear Power Plants

By: Ashlynn Dickinson

            I am focusing my topic on nuclear power plants because they are one of the many issues in our generation. There are a lot of pros and cons about nuclear power plants, but for the most part, they are very safe. There are about 104 commercial nuclear power in the united states, producing about 804.2 amounts of electricity. If you’re not familiar with nuclear energy, energyinformative.org defines it as this: “By separating an atom into two lighter atoms, there is a net loss of mass. This mass is not exactly lost, but rather transformed into massive amounts of energy. This is what is referred to as nuclear fission. By controlling these reactions we can harness the energy.” Most cons are involved with how expensive it is, and pollution. The Pros are involved with what it can do to our society and how it can better it. This site also describes more about what pros and cons are involved with nuclear power plants.

(http://energyinformative.org/nuclear-energy-pros-and-cons/)

            Many of the presidential candidates had things to say about nuclear power plants. Though many said great things, Donald Trump talked about it the most. He said he is very strongly in favor of nuclear energy because that is the way we mostly get what we want. He also said we need to be careful because nuclear power does have a lot of issues,

Like pollution, for example is a major issue with nuclear power

 (http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/20/heres-where-the-2016-candidates-stand-on-nuclear-power/)

Not only is the pollution a concern, but they are fairly expensive! In an article about nuclear energy by Dave Levitan, he goes to explain how in January of 2015, people from South Carolina wanted to build two new reactors but it was held off because it was going to cost an estimate of about $700 billion dollars and about 4.5 years to build. (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nuclear-power-energy-future-or-dinosaur-death-spiral-20103)

Donald Trump goes on to say, in his speech about nuclear power plants from May 2016, that if we cut nuclear energy, then millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of wealth will be lost. He stated things about Hillary Clinton and how she wants to cut back on coal mining and many nuclear energy benefits. If we do that, we will put many people out of jobs and also lose money for the states.  (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/an-america-first-energy-plan)

In conclusion, I strongly agree with creating more nuclear power plants. Donald Trump and many others have made really great comments about how great they can be. I do not agree with what Hillary Clinton wants to do with the coal mining and cutting back on nuclear energy. I believe that will just cause more problems with the U.S. that we don’t need.