An individual capable of reflection, where a beautiful young creature is in question, can have no soul nor vitals. As Hiroshima, Japan burned in 1945, the World recoiled in horror from the destructive potential of nuclear energy. Optimism replaced horror as nuclear energy became publicized during the 1950s as an instrument of progress. Today, nuclear power plants are all over the World. Japan, France and other industrialized nations depend heavily on nuclear power. Yet, in most countries, plans to rely more on nuclear energy have been delayed or cancelled. The cost, efficiency, environmental impact, and safety of nuclear energy are being seriously questioned. And maybe experts were right to question the program of nuclear energy on Earth. However, by 1990, the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity, in the United States, was costing slightly more than using coal—even when the coal-burning plants are equipped with expensive pollution control devise. At present, nearly all electricity-generating methods have average cost below those of new nuclear power plants. The use of solar energy is the exception, but by the years 2017, solar energy with natural gas backup is expected to be lower in cost also. Let us cease wondering and become wonder workers.

 Radioactivity escaping from a nuclear plant during normal operation is actually less than the amount released from a coal-burning plant of the same capacity. However, there is the potential danger of a meltdown. As nuclear fuel breakdown, it releases considerable heat. Typically, water that is circulating over the fuel absorbs the heat. The heated water produces steam, which drives electricity-generating turbines. Should a leak develop in the circulating water system, water levels around the fuel might plummet. The nuclear fuel would heat rapidly, past its melting point. The melting fuel would pour onto the floor of the generator, where it would come into contact with the remaining water and instantly convert it to steam. Formation of enough steam, along with other chemical reactions, could blow the system apart, like a bomb went off. Radioactive material would be released into the surroundings. Also, the overheated reactor core could melt through its thick concrete containment slab and into the Earth, causing ground water contamination. In 2011, the potential dangers of nuclear power were brought into sharp focus when a meltdown occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi power station in Japan. The Great East Japan Earthquake, on 11 March 2011, at 2.46 pm, was a magnitude 9.0, on the Richter scale, and also caused a huge tsunami.

 This major Earthquake not only did considerable damage in the, and killed over 20,000 people, but it also caused a major radiation leak. Albert Einstein predicted this would happen in 1945, when his appeal to have the public educated on nuclear realities was ignored, by the government. Radiation was released into the atmosphere, as the plant’s containment structures, were breached. A number of people died immediately, and others died from radiation sickness, during the weeks after the accident, as more than 100 metric tons, of highly contaminated radiation water, have leaked out of a tank, in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, directly into the Pacific Ocean. Officials actually acknowledged that contaminated groundwater was seeping into ocean at a rate of 300 tons a day. Many people, throughout the World are still concerned about long term consequences. More than 48 percent of people tested by Japan’s Fukushima Medical University, near the damaged nuclear reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts, and the rate is accelerating. In 1986, there was a nuclear disaster, in the Soviet Union, at Chernobyl, which resulted in 1 million deaths and 69 million health causalities. Because of these statistics, there has been a sharp increase of suicides, in the Fukushima region, of Japan, since the nuclear meltdown. Reasons for the suicides range from loss of family members, as a result of the tsunami, or earthquake damage, to loss of livelihoods, due to radiation contamination, and health impacts as a result of the nuclear meltdown.

 The Fukushima Daiichi incident underscores the dangers of nuclear accidents. Nuclear fuel cannot be burned into ashes, like coal. They still contain uranium fuel and contain hundreds of new radioactive isotopes produced during the reactor operation. Taken together, the wastes are an enormously radioactive, extremely dangerous collection of materials. As the nuclear waste undergoes radioactive decay, they produce tremendous heat, and immediately plunged into water-filled pools and stored for several months, at the power plant. The water cools the wastes and keeps the radioactive material from escaping. At the end of the holding period, the remaining isotopes are still lethal, and the decay rates of some of them mean that they must be isolated for at least 10,000 years. If one kind of plutonium isotope (239 Pu) is not removed, the wastes must be kept isolated for a quarter of a million years! Recently, the United States of America’s government approved a permanent underground storage program. Radioactive wastes are to be sealed in ceramic material, placed in steel cylinders, and then buried deep underground, in supposedly stable rock formations that are free from exposure to saltwater. The first underground depository is not expected to open 31 March 2017 in the Yucca Mountain. Scientific and political difficulties may postpone the opening until much later. The development of another type of reactor—the breeder reactor—is being considered. Such a reactor breeds fuel by converting an abundant isotope of uranium into a fissionable isotope of plutonium. 

Even though a conventional reactor cannot explode like an atomic bomb, a breeder reactor could undergo a very small nuclear explosion. Besides this, breeder reactors may cost several times more than conventional nuclear reactor. Also, it may take 100 to 200 years to produce enough plutonium to fuel a significant number of other breeder reactors. Theoretically, a third nuclear power source is fusion power. The idea is to fuse hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms, as this would release considerable energy. The process is analogous to the reactions that produce heat energy in the Sun. The scientific, technological, and economic problems associated with developing fusion power are great. Without major breakthroughs, fusion power is not expected to be available to produce electricity on a commercial basis, until the 2050, if ever. Quite probably, nuclear energy has given us the means to cause a mass extinction equal to those of past geologic eras. According to one scenario, a nuclear exchange, involving about one-third of the existing American and Russian arsenals would probably kill between 40 and 65 percent of the human population, along with a good portion of most other life forms. And that is a major concern because the Russian and Ukraine conflict could draw America into a war with Russia and that is not what we want to see. We want to see World peace.

Because in the event of a nuclear explosion, not only will the death toll be high, but those escaping rapid death would have to remain in shelters for a week to three months or even longer to avoid exposure to dangerous radiation levels. The nuclear detonations would inject a huge, dark cloud of soot and smoke over the Earth. The cloud would be dense enough in the Northern Hemisphere to block out the Sun. Much of the planet would be thrown into darkness and temperatures would fall below freezing for months—an effect called nuclear winter. If the freezing lasted for a shorter time, we night have a nuclear autumn. However, even then, the cold temperatures and darkness would be well beyond the tolerance limits of many planet and animal species. Therefore, nuclear energy normally does not pollute the environment as much as fossil fuels do, but the costs and risks associated with fuel containment and with storing radioactive waste are enormous. Japan plans to build an ice wall, around their damaged reactors, but radioactive waste has been leaking into the ocean since 2011. When winds and rains do not disperse dangerous pollutants, dust, smoke, ashes, soot, asbestos, oil, bits of lead and other metals, pollutants may reach lethal concentrations. In fact, industrial smog was the cause of London’s 1952 air pollution disaster, in which 4,000 people died. It is not infallible sign of great metal refinement to be a bespatter our fellow-creatures, while every nerve is writhing in honor of our pigs, our cats, our stocks, and our stones.