Nuclear power - a viable option against
Global warming due to climate change
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INTRODUCTION
Global warming has been incepted since the industrial ages and has been worsening day by day since. The carbon dioxide emissions are indeed baffling. Most mankind is dependent on fossil fuels majorly for running the civilization. The quest for energy arose from the need to progress. With daily reports coming in, global warming is leading to an unprecedented nagging issue, climate change. It is an indeed pressing issue with NASA claiming global temperatures to rise tremendously by the end of this century and immersing the coastal cities. With the population boom the need for fuel arose as well as the harmful effects. With already greenhouse gas emissions in place with tremendous amounts we need to cut it down to net zero to confront global warming. Two thirds of the emissions are attributed to burning fossil fuels.
World energy matrix
With humans aiming for progress, cities arose ,civilization came into being. So also the need for energy. With mastering fire we started a whole new need for a new variable in lives, energy. Almost 80% of the energy needs are fulfilled by using fossil fuels namely gas, coal and oil. Remaining 15% are balanced by renewables like hydroelectricity, solar, tidal etc. Nuclear shares the lowest 5%. The growing demand shows us that we pretty much depend on fossil fuels and transitioning will be pretty difficult without pushing us into the stone age. This opens us an alternative for opting into electric models and the consumption of electricity has also increased in the past decades with a booming amount. And electricity can also be produced by renewable models but the renewable method isn't reliable everytime it calls for heavy maintenance and heavy storage facilities. So fossil fuels are still used as the primary option. With the rise of civilization we came into nations which entered categories like developed , underdeveloped, developing nations. The developed nations due to high HDI consume the most energy and also rely on developing nations to borrow as they mine very much in a race to outrun developed nations. 10% of global oil production in fact is used to keep our homes warm and comfortable. The pace of generation of electricity from non renewable energy hasn't been able to catch up with generation from fossil fuels which keeps rising year by year.
Nuclear power
Reactor types are Pressurized water reactor, Boiling water reactor,Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor,PHWR,RBMK,Magnox. Indian reactors are mostly of IPHWR , BHWR types. New types are Biocatalytic Membrane Reactors, small modular reactors coming into picture. However nuclear power also releases greenhouse gases of which quantity is minuscule and almost negligible compared to fossil fuels. We are progressively building new reactors and we look into a positive side to fulfill the energy problem nationwide and reduce our emissions and set an example worldwide at the same time. Indian Department of atomic energy has done a commendable task in preparing nuclear fuel uranium oxide, processing plants, water treatment plants,extending help in healthcare like cancer medication facilities, handheld ECG etc. No energy source is perfect or powerful let alone nuclear energy every energy has its pros and vices. It'll be very difficult to achieve if we completely try to kick out fossil fuels. Nuclear facilities come with a cost, rehabilitation of resources, and the nuclear waste issue. We can invest rather in researching new technologies to get safer and a convincing viable alternative. Getting on the new part is always difficult. If we start to switch off nuclear from now we might risk more emissions from fossil fuels to fill that void. It is said nuclear technology can bring death disasters, but fossil fuels bring more deaths day by day gradually in an enormous mind-boggling amount compared to the rapid death by nuclear accidents. For instance the Fukushima incident it was reported that due to excellent management facilities there wasn't any harm reported due to the reactor blast but due to the pain of the stress of rehabilitation. Only one death was reported due to radiation. Nuclear power can cut off the emissions as well as fulfill the need provided a safe tech arrives.
Conclusion
Nuclear energy is the need of the hour. The sooner we act, the better we can reach our goal in time until it's out of our hand ,for there's no earth-2 .Need for energy let alone be fossil fuels or any renewable must be reduced and harnessed economically then only we can dream of cutting off global warming and also generating viable sources of energy without wasting any.
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