argumentative essay

In the essay “Going Nuclear” written by David Denlinger, the author claims that nuclear reactor is different from other energy generating power, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, because the nuclear energy doesn’t produce any greenhouse gas which will finally cause greenhouse effect.
In order to support his claim, the author quotes a report from U.S. Department of Energy which is present like this “nuclear power makes no contribution to global warming through the emission of carbon dioxide …sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, or particulates”. Furthermore, the author quotes some statistics provided by Energy Protection Agency shown as “coal plants produce 2249 1bs CO2/MWh, oil plants produce 1672 1bs CO2/MWh, natural gas plants produce 1135 1bs CO2/MWh, and nuclear plants produce ZERO 1bs COS/MWh”.

The counterexample he provides is a notorious catastrophe caused by nuclear plants which is widely known as the explosion of nuclear reactors at Chernobyl located in present-day Ukraine. Its influence is far reaching which not only causes lots of death immediately, but it also emits numerous amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere and several years later those radiation still threats people’s health.

The essay is very persuasive. Actually it is based on present-day modern science and technology, it is credible. Moreover, the author quotes a lot from official agency in U.S. Meanwhile, he also provides many direct and explicit statistics to support his claim and idea.