This a paper I made in my history class

Nuclear Power Issues in the World

Nuclear Power has been a hot topic for the last 68 years, so there have been many new innovations for nuclear power. There is also the two general sides, nuclear power is a safe form of energy, and nuclear power is a dangerous form of energy. So what is nuclear energy? Nuclear energy is the power that is produced by splitting uranium atoms to create heat. The heat is then used to evaporate water which is used to power turbines to generate energy. With the first-ever use of nuclear power is on December 20, 1951, where it was used to power some light bulbs the nuclear industry has since grown to something much larger in size. One of the downsides of the industry's growth is that it became accessible to countries that have very little cyber precautions to online attacks. Nuclear energy is controversial because of different views on creating new power plants, determining how to handle the waste, and concerns over security.

Nuclear energy is one of the most efficient sources of energy, it also has zero carbon emission, but the downside is that nuclear plants are very expensive to make. Nuclear energy generates about 20% of the United States power with only 61 power plants in the United States. Which means that from the thousands of other sources of power only 61 power plants are needed to power 20% of the power United States uses. One thing that is bad about the nuclear power plants is even though they make so much energy they also cost a huge amount of money to construct the plant. An example of the cost to build a nuclear plant is said by Henry Ray and Michael R Blood which is:

The Tennessee Valley Authority is finishing a long-mothballed reactor at its Watts Bar plant. Initially budgeted at $2.5 billion, finishing the project could cost up to $2 billion more, the utility has said.

This quote shows that most companies are not able to afford to make nuclear plants which are there is so little of them, but that is not the only reason why they are hard to make it is also because you need to get permission from the government. So nuclear power plants produce 20% percent of the United States energy, they also cost lots to construct, they also have strict guidelines to be able to make one. There are also many costs which have been caused by the byproducts of nuclear power.

Nuclear plants create a high amount of radioactive waste. The majority of the nuclear waste is although it is radioactive it is has a low level of radioactivity which is about 97% of the waste, and only 0.02 percent is the highly radioactive waste. Lots of the low radioactive waste is disposed in near-surface depositories, and they high radioactive waste is disposed of in deep geological repositories in places like Finland. Also much of the waste including the highly radioactive waste has become 1/1000 of what it originally was when it was put in the places in only 40 years. Waste also has other uses one of the big things is with plants and more specifically fruits, and vegetables. What they are doing to them is they are using radioactive isotopes to help increase the security of the food, but how is that making them more secure? It is making it more secure because they use the isotopes to kill plant diseases and pests. Doing this it increases the amount of yield from the crops because more are useable. An example that helps show this point even more said by Kamal Baher:

Nuclear techniques help national authorities in over 50 countries to improve food safety by addressing the problem of harmful residues and contaminants in food products and to improve their traceability systems with stable isotope analysis.

Nuclear waste can be very dangerous, but there are many things that you can use the waste for as well.

Security of power plants should be one of the utmost responsibilities when managing a power plant. One of the most well-known incidents being the Chernobyl nuclear breakdown which was caused by two elements human error, and poor design. More recently there was a study on the cybersecurity of nuclear plants in multiple countries. 20 of the countries completely failed the study. Which means that those countries, China being one of them, are all susceptible to cyber attacks. This means that hackers could steal data and use it to make their own nuclear plant, or even worse cause it to break. These hackers could also sell the data to other countries through the black market. It needs to be more secure because there are 24 known sales of weapon-usable 2.2 lbs nuclear material on the black market. On the topic of the nuclear material in the black market, David E. Sanger said:

Much of it still too vulnerable to theft," and many have just begun to think about their

vulnerability to cyber threats that could enable an attacker to sabotage a site without

breaking through fences or risk setting off perimeter alarms.

This is why there needs to be more security to nuclear power plants. Many nuclear power plants have failed, and many countries are susceptible to cyber attacks, and there are usable nuclear materials in the black market.

There are many controversies over nuclear energy caused by the different views of creating power plants, how to use waste, and security issues. One thing to note is that nuclear power can help with many more issues other than just power, and plants. It has also been used with livestock to control many of the animal diseases and other health problems. So you should support creating more nuclear power plants because of the benefits such as the energy production, and usages of nuclear waste which make it worth making more power plants of the same type.