The Cambridge Festival is a mixture of online and in-person events covering aspects of the research happening at Cambridge, taking place in March each year. After recently visiting the Atomic Academy event, which covered the world’s energy usage, radioactivity, and both nuclear fission and fusion, I felt compelled to do a little more research into nuclear power, and specifically, fission. 

 

France invested in fission power in the 20th century, and it provides three-quarters of their energy. It is a key reason why electricity is so cheap in France, and why the air there is so clean and unpolluted. Our government must surely learn from France’s example. Now, and not ‘by the 2050s’ we need to switch to fission power, instead of destroying our planet by burning coal, oil and gas.

 

But what about renewable sources of electricity, like wind or solar power? Aren’t those non-polluting? Well, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I have noticed that the sun doesn’t seem to shine at night, or, since we live in England, much in the day either. This means solar/wind power simply aren’t reliable enough to match energy demands these days. The splitting of atoms, however, isn’t affected by the changeable wind, or even the plagues of clouds blocking the Sun. Nuclear power is very much reliable, and we can control the rate of energy production easily to match the changing energy demands.

 

I am sad to say that nuclear power has a bad reputation when it comes to safety- one which isn’t deserved. It is in fact one of the safest ways to generate electricity. There a mere 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity generated, which makes it safer than many renewable sources of electricity, such as wind power and hydropower. Meanwhile, there are a colossal number of deaths from the air pollution that comes from burning fossil fuels.

 

I firmly believe our government should invest more in nuclear power. Climate change will affect us all, and especially our generation. Nuclear power is perhaps the Holy Grail when it comes to clean energy. It doesn’t pollute the atmosphere like coal, oil and gas, and yet it is reliable in order to meet our energy demands, unlike solar and wind power. And that is just fission. Hopefully, the problem of harnessing fusion power for energy generation will soon be solved. But that article is for another time.