Age of the Atomic Everything

In a flash of light, an entire city was obliterated into dust. Entire buildings were no more than mounds of steel, and concrete; all the wood was burned away. The shadows of those who once lived were burned into the ground. Thousands upon thousands of people were killed as a result of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, there was one overlooked casualty: peace. The idea of once and for all ending all conflicts, all of the manslaughter, all of the killings was killed along with those who perished in the summer of 1945. Moving forward 79 years, there is a race for nuclear supremacy. 

Image: Mike Truyts/Unsplash

After the Second World War, it was the United States and the Soviet Union that kept their stalemate going for more than 45 years, purely because both of them could blow each other out of existence in a mere 30 minutes. Although the same fear of instant defeat still plagues the powers, the capabilities and method of delivery have changed unimaginably. Long gone are the days of dropping bombs from super-fortress bombers. Scientists and the military-industrial complex have engineered missiles and rockets capable of striking and eliminating targets across several continents with extreme precision in a matter of minutes. The knowledge of nuclear fission is almost like an info hazard, a piece of information so dangerous that even being understood by one person can lead to devastating consequences to the entire world: physically, politically, economically, and psychologically. In such a world where there is no turning back, where discovering a piece of knowledge and noting it down is as if you are etching it into the side of a large diamond ore, all players of geopolitics must learn to utilize and win with the existence of such a devastating weapon. 

Amid the chaos, another form of utility reared its head to mankind once again. The first nuclear power plants were built in the 1960s as a proof of concept, laying the course for the development of more capable reactors. Generating heat from fission in a nuclear reactor, turbines connected to electric generators are powered, supplying a vast amount of electricity with the only waste being water vapor. In a period when there was only fire, oil, and other forms of fossil fuels to provide us with electricity, nuclear power seemed like a miracle. The industry experienced a remarkable boom until the 1990s when nuclear power accounted for 17% of all electricity production. Entering the 21st century, the percentage declined slowly. This shift was caused by the drastic increase in electric generation was growing so fast that other forms of electric production were able to adapt to the demand. However, we should still remember that nuclear power accounts for a very big portion of electric production. Ambitious projects in China and Europe aim to allow nuclear power to provide for even more of the electric grid. 

While nuclear technology first etched itself into history as a weapon of unimaginable devastation, its evolution brought forth an unexpected hope: the promise of clean and abundant energy. However, public opinion is often skewed when talking about nuclear energy. Disasters like Chornobyl, the Fukushima accident, and the Three Mile Island accident are popularly used as examples of the shortfalls and risks of nuclear power. 

The Chornobyl accident cost the lives of hundreds of volunteers and government workers. It caused the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents from their homes and was permanently closed off to the public. Radioactivity was spread by the wind over Belarus, Russia, and even west to France and Italy. Livestock was born deformed, and several thousand humans died of radiation-induced illnesses and cancer. 

After tsunami waves damaged backup generators, a series of unfortunate events led to explosions resulting from pressurized hydrogen buildup, damaging the outer containment buildings of reactors 1 and 3. This led the Japanese government to establish a no-fly zone and evacuate 47,000 residents. This was regarded as the second most disastrous accident in the history of nuclear power. 

Although research from the NRC, Department of Health, Department of Energy, and other universities has concluded that little to no harm was posed to people, wildlife, crops, and livestock in the area, the American public was shocked. Instead of radioactive particles, negative sentiment was in the air instead.

Experts agree that the disasters of Chornobyl occurred because of Soviet reactor design flaws and unsafe procedures. Commercial power reactors cannot explode like a nuclear bomb. The fuel is not enriched beyond 5%–much higher enrichment would be needed for an explosion. Moreover, the UN set up the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957, acting as an auditor of world nuclear safety. However, it is also true that accidents can indeed happen, and the consequences pose disastrous effects on the environment and people. 

If more countries plan to adopt nuclear energy, legislators and officials will need to weigh the efficiency and impressive amounts of electricity that can be generated, against the potential risk of contaminating and releasing radiation to the surrounding area if the plant is handled poorly. Once again, the opposites of nuclear power are meeting at a crossroads, and humanity must decide once again. Do we acknowledge the death and destruction of the past…for a potentially brighter and cleaner future?