Assignment 2 Genre (Nuclear Power Plants)

Link to the text:

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080831/NEWS/808290239/1132/OPINION&title=Nuclear_power_can_t_live_up_to_proponents__hype

Nuclear Power Plants

The title of the article is “Nuclear Power Can't Live Up to Proponents' Hype.” It is written by Tom Clements. He says “building new reactors will face increased risks due to the size and complexity of reactor projects, length of construction time and uncertainty about final costs”.

Recently, the use of nuclear power to generate electricity continues to increase all over the world. Some people believe nuclear power plants are safe and inexpensive. However, other people are wondering whether the plant will cause nuclear pollution in the future. This is really a controversial topic nowadays.

Before I came to the United States, three nuclear power projects were declared by the government of my hometown. At that time, the government’s media began to give wide publicity to the benefits of building those nuclear power plants. They asserted that nuclear power is reliable and inexpensive energy, and it has the lowest risk if we monitor it carefully. This argument contradicts the idea of Clements in his article. Even if the operating cost is inexpensive as the government said during that time, the building cost is still a huge expense. Maybe our government ignored the future cost and only focused on the benefits that the plants will bring to us. Anyway, I believe our government has already considered all the factors about whether or not to build those “giant monsters,” because the facts have proved that many big projects that had been opposed by most of the people at the beginning, which turned out to be absolutely beneficial to the society, such as water projects, tour projects and free ways. Those significant works show that our government is very foresight and sagacity. As for this reason, I’ll support them to continuously benefit the society.

The necessity of a great quantity of water is also a big challenge that influences a nuclear power plant. A nuclear power plant requires a large amount of water during its operation. As for our hometown, the number of lakes and rivers is not as abundant as the other areas in China, and neither is the rainfall. No one can predict that the water capacity in our province will be sucked dry by those big power plants someday.

In contrast, trying to convince my grandparents is not as easy as convincing myself. They are really worried about the future radiation from those nuclear plants. I did my best to tell them that the process of obtaining electric power in those reactors is harmless and the possibility of nuclear accidents is also very low, but they still don’t believe me and keep arguing against the projects. Maybe, they have been much influenced by some major nuclear accidents in history or they just too old to change their mind. I hope they’ll understand that someday.

The “nuclear issue” is still a big challenge in modern society. Many researchers and scientists are doing their best to let people know the fact. Some people believe that, and some people contradict that. Anyway, every coin has two faces. Maybe, we still need to wait for the most accurate answer for this question in the future.