Nuclear power - Does the risks outweigh the benefits?

Two thirds of the world's population is starving. While these people go hungry and die of curable diseases, which they can't afford, Britain, USA and others spend billions of pounds on nuclear weapons. I can see no use in spending huge amounts of money just so that countries can intimidate people who do not have such advanced and expensive weapons.

However I can under certain opinions about nuclear weapons being a deterrent to criminals or countries that dare to over step the mark and who pose a threat to civilization.

What is the most important thing in the world? This is a question a lot of people would answer very differently but on the top of many people's lists would be children. Nuclear power puts children and a lot of other people at risk. Nuclear weapons are viewed as one of the main risks BUT not the only one. E.g. of one of these many risks would be if nuclear waste is being transported through the area in which you live. The possibility of an accident is always there. The waste may be able to be cleaned but if your child was out playing the damage may be permanent.

Many would view this as a significant risks although risks are taken constantly in every day life. Does these risks prevent you from getting out of bed in the mornings or getting into a car. If you took life from this perspective you would not step outside your front door in case of what if...

Nuclear testing can cause contamination of our water supplies in the ground. Do we know the effects of nuclear testing? Government officials don't want the public to know the full extent of nuclear testing.

Others have said and I tend to agree that without nuclear testing such significant medical break throughs would never have been made. Radiation is used to treat many different types of cancers and with out this radiation therapy it is certain that many people would have lost their lives. Radiation is also used to sterilize medical supplies e.g. syringes without this radiatio0n it would be impossible to sterilize this equipment.

Testing with nuclear power can contaminate our water supplies in the ground.

We could also be destroying land, which could be used for further growth.

Nuclear testing may waste land but if environmental friendly sources of energy are used more land will be wasted. One nuclear power station provides so much energy that it would take hundreds of acres of land just to equal the amount of energy produced by a single power plant.

To outline the full extent of nuclear power I would like to inform the reader of a recent investigation carried by a group named COMARE on a Scottish nuclear power plant. COMARE found that the power plant was responsible for an excess number of cases of leukemia.

Nuclear power receives a lot of negative publicity from the media and I would not believe everything the media say happens.

Although radiation occurs naturally man made radiation poses the real threat.

I would like to finish off my piece on nuclear power by making one final point:

The alternative to nuclear power is fossil fuels which are a lot more dangerous to the environment and which will rip the ozone layer further open potentially meaning the end of the world. I believe nuclear should be used until an alternative power source is found.

My view of nuclear power has completely changed. I now believe that the use of nuclear power plants be stepped up and we should use this clean and reliable energy source more instead of trying to find ways to bring it down.