Blog 19

I read the article about nuclear energy. The author started off by giving an overview about nuclear energy and its highs and lows in use. He explained that it was relatively popular in the late 50s and early 60s, but people soon realized that they could get energy cheaper through other fuel sources like oil or coal.  Then he explained how the nuclear reactor works, which would not be very useful to me in writing my technology gone wrong paper. He then goes on to talk about the birth of the technology and how it was weaponized by the United States. We made a reactor just to make plutonium which is needed for the bomb, and we considered the energy we created to be a waste product, not even a byproduct. Then he talks about the start of commercial reactors and that leads into the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The Three Mile Island accident was caused by the complexity of the nuclear reactor and its sensors, when a technology becomes too complex for people to understand, it becomes many times more dangerous. Unfortunately, the accident in Chernobyl killed over 400 people and that was just an accident, not even a nuclear bomb. He then talks about the problem of nuclear waste and what to do with it. Nuclear waste can’t just be thrown into a river or burned into the atmosphere; it has to be stored away in a safe spot until it becomes useless and no longer radioactive.