Since the days of Franklin and his kite flying experiments, electricity has been a topic of interest for many people and nations. Nuclear power has been a great advance in the field of electrical production in the last fifty years, with it's clean, efficient and cheap production, it has gained a large share of the world's power supply. However with the wealth of safer alternative sources of electricity, the dangers involved with nuclear reactors to humans (ie. cancer) and past disasters such as Chernobyl there are well based reasons not to pursue this energy source. New sources such as fusion power, new studies concerning the health of nuclear by-products and scares of nuclear accidents like those at Chernobyl are slowly rendering Nuclear Fission an obselete energy source. This essay will prove that nuclear power is a dangerous technology and with many other sources and the dangers involved, the disadvantages of nuclear power far outweigh the benefits.
Alternative sources of energy are making their way into the highly competitive field of electricity production. With the wealth of sources such as solar, wind, hydro or geothermal the dangers involved with fission could be solved by adopting these newer, safer methods. A main source of energy that could lead the way for the near future is solar energy. It is clean efficient and is already a large part of American and Canadian electricity production. 'Solar energy already supplies about 6% of the nation's [U.S.A] energy ... the industry is still in an embryonic stage, and opportunity exists for increasing this contribution by ten times from current levels.' (Maidique, 92) It is obvious that solar power will become a large part of the electricity production around the world. With future expansion and newer solar cells, the power production could be increased to about 60-70% of the U.S.A's needs.
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