Should The US Build More Nuclear Power Plants for an Energy Source?

Nuclear energy is one of the most reliable sources of energy in the world today with many nations adopting it due to the relatively low cost of energy that comes after the initial cost of constructing power plants. The United States should therefore invest more in the construction of more nuclear power plants because whether we like it or not, nuclear energy is the energy source of the future. If more power plants are constructed, then the reliability on the other conventional sources of energy, such as fossil fuels, would be greatly reduced.

When more nuclear power plants are constructed in the United States, they should be constructed in secluded areas to ensure the safety of the human population in case of a nuclear accident as happened at Chernobyl. Furthermore, safe ways for the disposal of nuclear waste should be devised so that no harm can be brought to people who come into contact with it and to the environment. Since the construction of more nuclear power plants depends on the goodwill of all the political groups involved, then it is advisable for all these parties to come to a consensus on how to best deal with the issue. The nuclear plants should be constructed and while this is being done, all the safety concerns of those who are skeptical about it should be addressed to ensure that all the parties are working together to create a safe and efficient source of energy. There are many advantages for the use of nuclear energy in the United States and these may be political, economic, and environmental among others.

There are many economic benefits for the construction of nuclear power plants in the United States as a source of energy. One of these benefits is that very small amounts of raw materials are required for the production of a large amount of nuclear energy. Moreover, since these raw materials are required in such small quantities, they can be easily transported from one place to another even globally. The operation of nuclear power stations at their full capacity will ensure that cheap electricity is available in the market and that more people will be able to afford it. Nuclear power is a reliable source of energy because the average lifespan of a nuclear reactor is forty years and this lifespan can be extended by another twenty years. Although the initial cost of constructing a nuclear plant is high, the cost of running it afterwards is relatively low and this makes it a very good investment.

Nuclear power is very environmentally friendly because no harmful emissions are released into the environment during the process of producing energy, as compared to other sources of energy such as fossil fuels. Nuclear plants require very little space to construct and because of this it has very little impact on the environment. It can be used to produce large amounts of energy at very little environmental cost compared to other sources of energy because nothing needs to be burned in order to produce energy. Throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, all the byproducts produced are accounted for and it is carefully stored to ensure that there are no adverse impacts on the environment. It has been said of nuclear energy that since the beginning of the industrial revolution, it is the only industry which has managed to account for all of its waste that has a potential to harm the environment.

The use of nuclear energy may also have a political impact on the United States especially at the international level. In the recent decades, the United States has, on numerous occasions, had to go to war in other countries to secure its energy interests. A very good example of this has been the First and the Second Gulf Wars whose main purpose was to secure the supply of oil. The use of nuclear energy would greatly reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign sources of energy because it would have more than enough for its domestic needs and it would even be able to export some of the surplus electricity to neighboring countries. Furthermore, the image of the United States as an aggressive nation on the world stage would be rehabilitated and there would be a return of goodwill towards it which its recent wars have tarnished. 

In conclusion, the construction of more nuclear power plants is inevitable because nuclear energy is currently the most viable energy source in the world. If it is managed well, then it has the potential of producing enough energy to satisfy all the energy needs of the United States with minimal harm to the environment. Moreover, the low cost of running a nuclear power plant after the initial high cost of construction, makes it a very cost effective source of energy and due to the long lifespan of a nuclear reactor, then a lot of money would be saved. The political goodwill that the United States had lost would be returned through its use of nuclear energy and this would secure it position as the world leader.

Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28, 1929 in Stockholm, Sweden to a Swedish diplomat who was based in New York and he attended the Latin School of Chicago and afterwards went to Yale University where from 1946 to 1950, he studied literature and art history. He then returned to Chicago where he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago later, after moving to New York, he met and was influenced by such artists as Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow. Starting 1969 to 1977, Oldenburg was in a relationship with the artist and sculptor, Hannah Wilke with whom he shared several studios and travelled together with and in 1977, he married Coosje Van Bruggen. Oldenburg’s first show was at the Judson Gallery of New York in 1959 and it included metaphorical drawings and papier - mache sculptures and in 1966, he was credited with an exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet; in 1969 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among several others. Oldenburg won the Wolf Prize in Arts in 1989, in 2000, he was awarded the National medal of Arts and he has also received honorary degrees from several universities in the United States and in Europe. His sculpture, named the Typewriter sculpted in 1976, and was one among an edition of three was sold was sold for $2.2 million at Christie’s New York in 2009. Oldenburg’s creativity can be traced to his childhood when he was often left to entertain himself with his father’s office machinery. He has always been fascinated by scale, and during the 1960s, he began enlarging everyday items, often imagining them the size of public monuments.

Oldenburg’s art reflects the popular culture of the 1960s when he and his associates began to use images associated with popular culture in their work.  In the early 1960s, Oldenburg helped to usher in the Pop Art revolution by using materials like burlap and canvas to create sandwiches and ice cream cones the size of furniture and everywhere he traveled, he replaced existing monuments with those of his own design. His non-heroic subjects challenged traditional concepts of public sculpture and the artist has envisioned a huge pair of scissors on the site of the Washington Monument, a giant fan to replace the Statue of Liberty, and two enormous toilet-tank floats installed on a river in the city of London. His work has concentrated more on environmental awareness and conservation. Oldenburg's installation The Street, exhibited twice in Greenwich Village in 1960, used banal, trash like materials to depict pedestrians, cars, street signs, and other elements of a New York City streetscape and as it turns out, the food sculptures are autobiographical. "The key to my work is that it's about my experience," said Mr. Oldenburg, 83, in an interview in Vienna some years ago, "If I ate BLTs, which I did, I would sooner or later want to create them".