Month: February 2023

We all love water.  There is no better way to say it.  Water plays a critical role in the environment; nearly every organism is made mainly of water and needs water to survive.  For most organisms, fresh water is required for consumption.  However, over 97% of water is salt water, and it is stored in oceans and seas.  Of the remaining 3%, 2% is stored in glaciers and mountain ranges.  Only 1% of all water on Earth is readily available for human consumption.

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We need to learn to be careful with the fresh water that we have available.  Although the amount of water on Earth will never change, the distribution of water is changing every day.  As ice caps and glaciers melt, freshwater is converted into saltwater in the ocean.  This is a direct result of global warming.  As our climate becomes warmer and warmer every year, we lose more and more fresh water to the oceans.  As the oceans’ water levels rise, more fresh water is exposed to salt water.  Thankfully there is a way to convert salt water into fresh water.  However, this technology is not yet convenient and uses a lot of energy.  What have we learned in the past?  The more energy that is needed, the more carbon is in the atmosphere.  More carbon in the atmosphere leads to the temperature rising.  The temperature increasing leads to additional fresh water turning into salt water in the oceans.

Another important aspect of water is that it shapes our environment.  Water does not run smoothly along the surface of the Earth.  It pushes and pulls dirt, rock, sand, and anything else it can with it.   This is the process of erosion.  However, the process of erosion is being altered by humans.  One way it is being modified is through urbanization.  Water flow is generally controlled within and near cities, not allowing it to flow as it naturally would.  It is also being altered in rural areas, such as the midwest.  Trees are cut down in areas with lots of farms to make room for planting crops.  However, trees act as water sponges and anchor the ground underneath them, preventing erosion.  With fewer trees, there is more room for water to run and nothing to prevent the soil from being lifted up and carried with it.  This leads to a significant, unnatural movement of sediment, which you can easily see at the mouth of the Mississippi River on Google Earth.

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The other day I was doing homework in the Hub, and I inevitably got bored.  So, I got on YouTube and started watching random videos on random topics, as one does.   However, in the midst of the mind-numbing content, I watched a video that was quite interesting to me.  Hank Green, whom we all know from Crash Course – along with his brother John- posted a short video proposing how we can eliminate the need for hundreds of Coal-fired power stations.  Coal is a fossil fuel, and humans have been using coal for thousands of years.  However, its emissions are very “dirty,” releasing substantial amounts of CO2 gas.

Unfortunately, America is still very dependent on fossil fuels to meet our ever-increasing energy needs.  Energy from Coal-fired power plants supplies over 20% of our nation’s power.  In order to eliminate our dependence on coal and other fossil fuels, we must find another answer quickly.

Going back to the Hank Green video, Hank talks about how Nuclear power plants are very similar to Coal-fired power plants.  In short, both types of power plants boil water in order to create steam; then the steam turns an electric generator, producing electricity.  The critical difference is how the water is boiled at the start of the process.  In Coal-fired power plants, coal is burned at a very high temperature to boil the water.  However, Nuclear power plants use Nuclear fission to heat the water to its boiling point.  This prevents plenty of carbon emissions from reaching the atmosphere.  There is a catch, though: the cost.  Nuclear power plants are substantially more expensive than an old-fashioned Coal-fired power plant.  Nuclear power plants require all of the same equipment that a coal plant has, along with the nuclear reactor.  As you can imagine, nuclear reactors are incredibly expensive.

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There is also one other factor that is preventing the construction of additional nuclear power plants: fear.  Having a nuclear reactor near your neighborhood is a little bit ominous to think about.  Nuclear accidents are incredibly rare, almost impossible with today’s technology.  However, a nuclear reactor can have devastating effects if something goes wrong.  The most famous example of this is the Chernobyl incident in what is now Ukraine.  The fallout from this accident spread over millions of acres of land.  The fallout from the explosion reached as far west as France.

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“Is it worth the risk?”  Politicians, us voters, and other nations must ask this question.  Based on America’s history with nuclear power, I think it is worth the risk.  There are already nearly 100 nuclear power plants in the United States, with no major accidents in over 50 years.  Nuclear energy is the best stop-gap available until we can utilize 100% renewable energy.