Study Document
Era of Cheap Oil Is Essay
Pages:2 (714 words)
Sources:1+
Subject:Science
Topic:Nuclear Energy
Document Type:Essay
Document:#64410791
A website called Texas Radiation Online documents a number safety violations and cost overruns for current Texas nuclear power plants that somehow have been forgotten in the news in the last few years. This is rather ironic, considering that nuclear power was supposed to be very cheap. Then Atomic Energy Agency, Chairman Lewis Strauss said in 1954 that "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter,."
Evidentally, Chairman Strauss was not talking to the people of the city of Austin, TX. The amounts passed onto ratepayers are in the billions of dollars. As the City of Austin joined State of Texas Nuclear project in 1973, the plant was estimated to cost $1 billion, with the Austin's share set at $161 million. This ballooned to $6.2 billion with the town's share at over $1 billion. Nuclear power has basically been proven to neither cheap or clean. This author believes agrees with Texas Radiation Online that such plants should be replaced with wind which is cheap and plentiful in Texas. They has been proven to generate income for Texas ratepayers instead of the other way around. Decommissioning such nuclear plants would remove the financial and security liability as well as preventing the necessity to store and haul nuclear waste that has a half-life of thousands of years. Certainly, these types of plants are not as glamorous as the nuclear power plants, but it is better to rely on a proven, cheap technology than to put so much money into dangerous and exotic technologies such as nuclear energy.
Works Cited
Hertsgaard, Mark. "We must imagine a life without oil. " Environment. AlterNet.org, 08 April 2008. Web. 28 Nov 2010. .
Thompson, Richard. "Additional coal-fired power plants in Texas would produce more 'bad air' days in Louisiana, group says." 16 Nov. 2010. Web. 28 Nov 2010.
http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2010/11/additional_coal-fired_power_pl.html
"Texas Nuclear Power Plants." Texas Radiation Online, 2003. Web. 28…
Sample Source(s) Used
Works Cited
Hertsgaard, Mark. "We must imagine a life without oil. " Environment. AlterNet.org, 08 April 2008. Web. 28 Nov 2010.
Thompson, Richard. "Additional coal-fired power plants in Texas would produce more 'bad air' days in Louisiana, group says." 16 Nov. 2010. Web. 28 Nov 2010.
http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2010/11/additional_coal-fired_power_pl.html
"Texas Nuclear Power Plants." Texas Radiation Online, 2003. Web. 28 Nov 2010. <http://www.texasradiation.org/texasnukes.html>.
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