Nuclear Energy

definitions: Nuclear power source: nuclear power plant, C1 - Location - One cannot account nor predetermine what kind of weather patterns will change due to global warming. Location is the biggest issue with a nuclear power plant. You can't place it anywhere where there is a high risk place like natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. ). The power plant cannot be placed in any urban area due one simply needs to see japan to now why or Chernobyl but even then a spill can contaminate for miles in any direction. Furthermore We are still fighting a "war on terror" this makes nuclear power plant high risk. So the power plant cannot be built anywhere in the coasts or near faults or in high density areas that leaves the rural areas however it cannot be placed there either because if there is a spill the people there loose their source of income and maybe thier lives due to human error. C2 -cost- nuclear power plant construction costs—mainly materials, labor, and engineering—rose by 185 percent between 2000 and 2007. More recently, costs have been increasing even faster: In mid-March, Progress Energy informed state regulators that the twin 1,100 MW nuclear plants it intends to build in Florida would cost $14 billion, which "triples estimates the utility offered little more than a year ago. " Jim Harding, former director of power planning and forecasting for Seattle City Light, estimates that nuclear plants constructed today would provide electricity at between 12 and 17 cents per kilowatt-hour. To put this cost into perspective, the average U. S. electricity price in 2006 was 8.9 cents per kWh, and well-placed wind turbines can produce electricity for less than 5 cents per kWh. So nuclear power actally costs more than wind or water power. C3 - investment - Subsidies for nuclear reactors wouldn't subsidize nuclear technology—they would subsidize the nuclear industry. Congress should fund research of clean, alternative energy technologies that promise to rival fossil fuels in cost—without subsidies. Congress should also provide tax credits that would make such technologies cheaper by encouraging production and moving them down the experience curve. Such support would encourage a growing American industry and create American jobs. By squandering our limited resources on subsidies for the nuclear power industry, the United States is missing an extraordinary opportunity. C4 - Waste - Where is all the waste going to go? nuclear power generates toxic waste never mind that america hasn't really built one in over thirty years and never mind that japan steel is the only company which produces the central part of a nuclear reactor containment vessel. All the waste generated by uranium/plutonium ( and we don't have vry much uranium so availability is also a problem) will go in big containers and be buried in the earth which is sort of ironic because nuclear energy is supposedly clean. Conclusion: The united states federal gov't should not invest in nuclear power sources because of lack of understanding nuclear power plants, there is no viable location of where to put nuclear reactors, They would be high risk targets for terrorists, an investment in them would not be wise, and there would be a generation of waste and the availability of uranium is another problem as well. Thank you for this debate.