RJA #3a: Research Topic Exploration: "Is Nuclear Power Safe?": ENG 1020

After spending several hours going over websites for information on the topic of "is nuclear power safe?", I have found several sites that will help me in my research.

The First website I came across was the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions website. Once I found this site I found that they have several different stories I could possibly use to research my topic. One of the main articles I will use is entitled High-Level Waste. This is what I discovered from this article.

1. High level waste is extremely radioactive which can be harmful to humans.
2. Waste of this type is created when the nuclear fuel is used up.
3. Waste of this kind is typically stored somewhere were it will decay and become safe.
4. Decay can take hundreds to thousands of year to occur.

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/high-level-waste.html

The second resource I found was from the website called atomicarchive. The article I reviewed was called Major Nuclear Power Plant Accidents.

1. Several Nuclear accidents have occurred between 1952-1999.
2. Nuclear accidents have had effects on people as well as the environment.
3. Some accidents are caused by faulty equipment and others by things man can't control.
4. The Chernobyl accident sent radiation over much or Europe and has killed at least 35 people.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Reports/Japan/Accidents.shtml

Another site I visited was Wikipedia. An article I found was called Environmental effects of nuclear power. These are the facts I found.

1. Around 300 tons of high level nuclear waste is created every month per nuclear reactor.
2. Nuclear Power does not create Carbon Dioxide as a byproduct. This makes it a form of power that doesn't release green house gases.
3. Nuclear reactors release a ton of heat into the environment to cool there reactors.
   
4. Most nuclear waste is stored in underground were it is supposed to be safe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_nuclear_power


The final website I came across was focused on how safe nuclear energy has been. The title of the article I looked over was called safety of nuclear reactors.

1. The shielding in nuclear power plants is built to certain standards to prevent contamination.
2. Equipment is constantly running to try to prevent problems from occurring
3. backup systems are in place encase problems occur.
4. Only one commercial nuclear accident has cause deaths.
5. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) police the world on nuclear power to make sure standards are met to keep it safe.
6. No nuclear accident can lead to a nuclear explosion on commercial plants.
7. In most accidents the radiation has never made it out of the containment areas.
8. Extremely high security to prevent theft of nuclear materials that could be used as weapons.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html

These are the sites I have so far come across. This was just a brief look at my topic and I have already found a ton of information to write my paper. I am sure that once I get off the web and dig into books I will find several more relative articles.