Nuclear Power

I am Saltanat from Kazakhstan, Astana. Today, as a Science and Environment group, we had an important experience, as an interview with the State of Department representative. my question was related to the connection between the media and public opinion. It sounded: “The media has a major role in forming and contributing public opinion. How did it affect on public perception of global warming and the different theories that have evolved to solve the problem?” This question seemed to be a bonal one, as this issue is obvious in many cases, because media affects anything and everyone and anywhere. So, the answer was of the same character, meaning it did live up to my expectations.Generally talking about this interview, I personally understood that it is very difficult to work in State of Department, and to be always ready for different kinds of questions that someone might ask. As it happened today. Most of us had a specific question about the global warming and nuclear power plants condition for now and the predictions for the future, considering currency. Though the official was not a scientist of climate change (as he said several times), he tried to answer them as accurate as he could, which impressed me much. Saltanat.

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In an interview with a State Department Offical we learned about the US Government’s position of Global Warming and Nuclear Power plants. The offical commented about subsidies for alternative energy. But I have to say that this is not nearly enough money to help turn America from coal and oil based power plants. When asked about the subsides for record making profit company Exxon Mobile, compared to alternative energy subsides the offical had no major comment. I personally feel that Alternative energy cannot move forward unless there is more help from the government to offset the initial price of alternative energy. Nuclear power is controversial due to the radioactive waste that it creates and the government plans to continue constructing new nuclear power plants in the future to ease global warming.

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My name is Lena, I come from Belarus. on the twentieth of july our Science and Environment group experienced a teleconference with a State of Department official. we had an opprtunity to ask questions we are interested in. my own personal question was: “How much of global warming is independent from human causes?”. I did not receive a full answer, because he was not a specialist of that issue. However, i was informed that human causes about 80% of differences made in the process of global warming. This kind of an experience will be very usefull for all of us in the future career, if we are to choose this branch.

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Today my group had a teleconference with a man who works at the State Department. He works on the problem of global warming, which was the other group’s topic. However, nuclear power is related to global warming since it is a definite possibility as an alternative energy source, so we were able to ask him a few questions pertaining to nuclear power/waste. I asked him about the possibility of recycling nuclear waste to save space in Yucca Mountain or to get more fuel, but he said that he wasn’t a scientist and he didn’t know what the government was planning. He did say that President Bush views nuclear power as one of the only feasible alternative energy sources that we have right now. I would agree with that, but in my opinion we shouldn’t continue to rely on nuclear power as our alternative energy given its potential for horrifying accidents. We should be exploring many other options, ones that would hopefully be less deadly if something goes wrong.

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The US government’s plan to dispose of nuclear waste is to store it inYucca
Mountain. Recycling the waste has been dismissed in the past because it has been cheaper to mine new uranium or to use oil. But as oil prices rise, recycling might become the feasible economic option. Would you take the alternative of recycling nuclear waste even though the processed plutonium might be stolen and used by terrorists?

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Transportation of Nuclear Waste will impact millions of Americans

Nevada consultant Dr. Robert Halstead, who’s been a transportation adviser to the state of Nevada since 1988, says if you take a map of the
U.S. transportation system and mark the locations of nuclear facilities, you get a pretty good idea of potential shipping routes. “They would heavily affect cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, in the Chicago metropolitan area, in
Omaha,” says Halstead. “Coming out of the south, the heaviest impacts would be in Atlanta, in Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City, moving across through Salt Lake City, through downtown Las Vegas, up toYucca
Mountain. And the same cities would be affected by rail shipments as well.”Spencer Abraham (DOE) on the other hand has stated: ““I think there’s a general understanding that we move hazardous materials in this country, an understanding that the federal government knows how to do it safely.”

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The
US moratorium on recycling nuclear waste was lifted by President Reagan, but we still haven’t begun to reprocess any nuclear waste. Oil has been historically cheaper than uranium and there is also public concern about the probability of weapon grade plutonium. Now the price of oil is rising. Would you consider recycling spent nuclear fuel and nuclear power in general a good energy source in the future? If not nuclear power, what type of energy do you think will be the best option for the
US?

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