Wednesday 29 October 2014

NEED

The precursor of human civilization was spawned by what can be termed with one word need. The need for sustainability on numerous aspects. The need for safety and the need for food security. This later resulted to other needs. The era of the Ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamia and other civilization practically revolved around these two needs, however over time then there was the need for clothing then later education for sustaining food production and public safety. It was through the rapid increase in population and thus the need for employment that later the need to have more businesses to grow and industries. This resulted to the need for energy to power the growing industries. The unfortunate situation is that over years, we have relied on fossil fuels for thousands of years resulting to environmental degradation that later brought about the need to preserve the environment. The mounting pressure has resulted to looking at sources such as solar, wind, hydro electric, tidal power, geothermal and nuclear. Oil and gas are still in use however with the speculation of oil wells drying up in the near future, there will be need to have other sources that are consistent and sustainable. For consistency purposes, people are setting their eyes on nuclear power. The interesting thing about nuclear power is its high energy yield and no carbon emissions compared to coal, oil and gas. A small nuclear pellet of 2.5 centimeter in height and 1 centimeter in diameter has an energy yield of one ton of coal that produces 2.06 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Nuclear energy is being embraced by several countries for their economic upheaval as the energy produced last years and is cheaper compared to buying millions of litres of oil or gas for millions of dollars that can be used for investments. However, the other side is handling the radio active waste that people claim that it will have adverse effects on the environment. People need to know that we live in a planet that obeys the newtons third law of motion that states for every action, there is always an equal opposite reaction. This is to say the radiation can be countered by nature's own sunflower plants that are capable of absorbing radiation and clean the environment of it. The experiment was used in Chernobyl and now Fukushima to clear the contamination. It is however interesting that those who claim to criticize the use of nuclear power particularly in Africa, they happen not to provide an alternative. Nuclear accidents are unpredictable but can be contained. The problem is the accidents are the one that people find easy to talk about than how it is contained. After the Chernobyl disaster, the need for rigorous safety measures were put into place and more instead it inspired many to venture into research on safety, nuclear fusion and other applications where a lot of discovery was done so far. The need to embrace nuclear technology for electricity generation and other applications has increased over time. Kenya stands to gain with the embracing of Nuclear technology, not just for electricity generation but for the future.

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