"Why we Still Need Nuclear Power: Making Clean Energy Safe and Affordable."

Moniz, Ernest. "Why we Still Need Nuclear Power: Making Clean Energy Safe and Affordable." Foreign Affairs 90.6 (2011): 83-94. ProQuest Biology Journals; ProQuest Central; ProQuest Computing; ProQuest Education Journals; ProQuest Health Management; ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source; ProQuest Psychology Journals; ProQuest Science Journals; ProQuest Social Science Journals. Web. 17 Apr. 2012.

 

What are you going to do when you can no longer breathe clean air? This could be happening sooner that we may expect. The source “Why We Still Need Nuclear Power: Making Clean Energy Safe And Affordable” written by Ernest Moniz mainly discusses the pros and cons to nuclear energy. It mostly focuses on the greenhouse gasses produced by conventional means of obtaining energy and how they are huge causes for greenhouse gas pollution. These means of obtaining energy are more harmful and give off more pollutants than transportation.  This source also talks about how nuclear energy’s waste should be handled which is a very big concern that author John D’Agata talks about throughout his book “About A Mountain.” Both authors are on different sides of the argument. It seems as if the author of this source is for nuclear power while D’Agata is very opposed to it. While D’Agata thinks we should stop using nuclear power until we find a place for the waste, Moniz agrees we should store the waste in designated locations, but have them heavily monitored so that if there is a situation then it can be taken care of.  Moinz feels that the locations should only be built to withstand a century because hopefully by then we will hopefully had a breakthrough that will result in safe nuclear waste disposal. Due to that fact that this article is so specific to nuclear power I will heavily rely on it to extract information for my research paper. I will use the information on costs of new nuclear plants, new technology that could reduce costs, and other pertinent information regarding my topic. I will most likely use this article to talk about the pollution emitted by every other kind of energy obtaining methods. Although Moniz may not be fully for switching mainly to nuclear power he sure give many reasons why we should try to adopt more nuclear plants, because who knows, we may not be able to breath soon.