Electricity in our modern age is one of the most important ingredients to the soup that is our electronic world, but our means of production are placing the survival of our environment at  high stakes.  Nuclear power has been receiving lots of attention lately due to it being seen by some as the clean stairway to energy producing heaven.This may or may not be the brightest solution in the eyes of the people, but if the right information is displayed along with the required precautions, nuclear power could be the next big step in energy production. Looking back at some of the previous nuclear disasters will show that the nuclear program has come a long way, but the people also need to know why we can trust it and the problems we need to address to solve over time.
Nuclear meltdown can be a scary topic, but also because of the 2011 meltdowns at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, the fear has only increased. Even though Japan’s crisis recently occurred, a public poll concerning if or if not Americans trust nuclear energy was conducted by CNN in March of 2011 and showed that 57% of Americans still believed in nuclear energy. This could be seen as the proper outlook by the people because we can to look at this like a disaster that has taught us what precautions we need to take so it won’t happen again. Some may say that we will not have the same circumstances as Fukushima, but knowing we will be ready is a plus.
Another disaster that some may recall would be the over 30 year old happening when “Nuclear Unit 2 had a “partial” meltdown on Three Mile Island ( March 28 1979 )” according to the article  “Background on the Three Mile Island Accident” produced by U.S.NRC on December 12, 2014. I really say “Some may recall” with sarcasm because infact this was the worst accident in America’s nuclear history that ended up costing millions to clean and repair and basically halted the nuclear program until further notice. This is when a change was needed shortly after the event many safety precautions were made, but the irony in the situation was that the only reason for the meltdown was a minor malfunction in a closing valve. After the publicity of the meltdown cooled off, eventually some Americans jumped back on the bandwagon. Safety is the one thing everyone wants, but to really have this we need to learn from these catastrophic events by analyzing what went wrong and improve.

When someone says they have an electric car are they really going totally green? The simple answer is no because every time someone plugs in that car coal is being burned in order to make this electricity. Coal is a major source of energy in the U.S and the article “What is U.S Electricity Generation by Energy Source” by eia published January 2015 shows that 33% of the U.S energy comes from coal burning. Coal fire plants may be if not are the cheapest means of producing energy, but just like natural gas it lets of a terrible amount of carbon emissions. Nuclear energy on the other hand may not be the cleanest choice, but it prevents approximately 580 million metric tons of harmful carbon emission each each year. Although this is a big accomplishment of the 104 activated nuclear plants only 31 of the 50 states in the U.S have one in use according to the article “ America's Navy The Unsung Heroes Of Nuclear Energy” by James Conca on Forbes published October 28, 2014. This is a good step, but to create a cleaner environment we will need to eliminate coal and go with the cleaner sources.

North Dakota is a very big contributor to the coal and oil market, but it is lacking in the sense of nuclear power making it one of the nineteen states without a nuclear plant.The problem is that almost all of North Dakota's energy is produced by coal fired plants and considering that North Dakota isn’t exactly known for it’s fantastic Solar or Wind energy a change should eventually be made. Nuclear power by any means is not cleaner than wind or solar power, but one things for sure it cleaner than coal and creates more energy. The 614 coal plants (as stated before) only produce 33% of the U.S’s energy, but of the 104 nuclear plants approximately 20% of the U.S’s energy is produced according to the NEI article“Nuclear energy fact sheet” publisthed in July of 2015. Nuclear energy is already producing eminence amounts of American power, but eventually if more plants are build that percent will dwarf that of coal fired plants.

Some will say that nuclear energy is “clean energy” because of the low carbon emissions, but in truth there is differnt forms of environmental damage done before and after the construction. Building a Nuclear plant is a difficult job that takes a long time and one of the big environmental hazards is the building process. The price tag on these plants are 2- 4 billion according to the article “Cheap dreams, expensive realities” by and an anonymous writer on ucusa and published August 2013. The work to build one isn't clean either because to build the plant the company has to bring in machines such as trucks and cranes which all run off of fossil fuels. The nuclear plant is basicly a negative impact right after it is built until it gets up and running.That is one of the tough challenges because fossil fuel powered cars aren’t going away in the near future. The next and probably the most debated problem with nuclear energy is what to do with the radioactive waste. The radioactive waste produced since the nuclear plant system was created in the U.S is a huge number of barrels. Each one of these radioactive barrels will last anywhere from 40,000-240,000, years making it very hard to store because once the spot to put the barrels is full it doesn't recycle for a long time. This places nuclear energy in an awkward situation with the government and its push for a large containment hole in Nevada that residents and state do not want. A small solution could be to find a way to lengthen the life of the uranium rods, therefore making less waste, but until then we have to wait. Finally since most nuclear plants are run of rivers somehow some the waste chemicals and radiation are seeping in the river killing fish and polluting the river. A difficult solution would be to find the source of the leaks and cutting them off. The waste and pollution produced before and after the construction of nuclear plants is immense; however, with technological advancements someday nuclear energy could be seen as a true clean energy source.
Learning important information from the disasters at nuclear plants and, looking towards the future ,I hope that we will never have another nuclear meltdown, more people will learn to trust nuclear energy and our efforts to make nuclear energy “greener” will be fulfilled. With all the aténtion nuclear power is receiving, nuclear energy may be seen as a brighter solution by some and hopefully it will become the next big step in energy production. With all of te modern technology nuclear energy has great chance to become better over time, but with our modern age a change needs to come fast or else the fate of the environment will be baren upon us. Until then our efforts have been good, but hopefully someday clear “er” energy will be the main source of power.