Nuclear Power In Our Neighborhood.

What does our life depends on today? 1. Energy, 2. Energy and 3. Energy.

And nuclear energy power seems to be "the" topic of debate where renewable energy resources are concerned. In a present day situation burning our very limited fossil fuel for energy production does not seem like a smart option. If those fuels are in turn releasing green house gas emission upon burning to pollute our atmosphere and contribute towards global warming, there is a further more reason to be concerned about using it for the energy production. If we don't consume our fossil fuel, how do we power our high energy consuming world?How do we even start our day, and manage day to day activities without  consuming energy, let alone running industries and manufacturing? Therefor it is inevitable that we have to invent other methods of creating energy. We have been taping into solar energy, wind energy, hydro electric energy, bio-mass energy as some renewable sources of energy. Then there is Nuclear energy. 

Nuclear energy process attracts attention of such great magnitude due to its ability of formation of huge quantity of energy/power through the consumption of a small quantity of very clean burning raw material., mainly uranium. This ensures almost no emission of green house gases upon energy consumption. Loads of energy production and negligible pollution from a small quantity of fuel – in theory this sounds perfect. 

However, when I start to pull in all the facts , the big picture however does not seem so rosy. It takes an intense mining to collect the basic raw material, uranium. Countries all over the world , and especially Australia, Argentina, Canada, Brazil, China, France have gone through some serious mining to obtain this very  precious radio-active material.It takes an insane amount resources to create a safe and effective nuclear power plant that can create and manage the nuclear energy. And even after creating such an advanced, sophisticated systems, the risks associated with the nuclear accidents can be devastating, not just for us, but also for our unborn future generations. 

Most important factor to think about, however,  is the radio active waste that has been generated. Current;y we do not have an answer to managing radioactive waste. Our answer to managing radio active waste is to seal it into the special containers and store the containers deep inside the ground under controlled ( cold) temperatures. They will lie there for an eternity. We are just hoping that the radio active waste will lie there safely without causing any unfathomable havoc in future. But we can only hope for that. We have no definite way of making sure of that. So are we being responsible towards our environment, towards so many other species that exist with us,  towards our unborn future generation?

I know I would feel cheated if any other species left their "hazardous waste" for me to take care of without being responsible about it.And therefore, I want to think this over again and again, before I do this to them. 

Most importantly,  if we don’t realize where to stop with our energy consumption, even the nuclear power  may not be enough for our need of energy production, and a day will come when we will have all the uranium on the earth consumed, unacceptably hazardous waste on our hands and a need to look for more energy generating options. It makes me wonder, is there a reason, we witness dystopian cities in most of our futuristic visions and movies?Is our sixth sense trying to tell us something??

Eco- Consumerism.

We are constantly being bombarded with the information about our physical world these days. There is a whole lot of information available for consumers about the all the "stuff" we use in our day to day life. Not too long ago, I used the "wattzon calculator" to gestimate just how much green my life is. It was quite shocking to  know that my very very mundane life was anything but green. Out of my whopping 4684 Watts foot print  ( average was 2, 787 Watts) , about 1700 Watts were taken up by the "stuff" I owned. And that was even greater than the international flying I have done in the past year. 

This stuff was mostly the everyday stuff I owned such as television, microwave oven, phone, laptop, luggage bags, pillows, board games, my purses, my socks, my tooth brush... the list was endless. I know I like to buy good quality products. But looking at the figures these products generated, I could not stop thinking about my ignorance. Probably most of these good products still have some traces of cheap materials, toxins,  and unsustainable manufacturing methods. I really have no clue how they are made and what happens to them when I am done using them. May be they end up in  an abyss of the landfills or get incinerated , release more toxins in the air, for me to breath. Until that day, as far as I was concerned, I was doing my job perfectly by purchasing good quality products, using them neatly and donating them for the re-use. And I thought I was a responsible consumer.

Wattzon calculator got me looking at my stuff in a whole different light. Would I feel better if all my stuff was made differentely?If it was made up of natural raw materials instead of some complicated plastic polymers I can't even read correctly?Sure. Would I feel safer if my stuff was free of toxins and not harmful in any way to my health?Absolutely. Would it be better for my environment if it naturally decomposed? Not a doubt.
So,  consuming products which are all that can be our answer ? I am not sure.

I know every educated person thinks on the similar terms as I do when it comes to our sustainability. Today we are pushed towards choosing a "green-er" product over the conventional ones. We have counter green product for everything- ranging from a toy to a car. But has the agenda [of promoting consumerism] behind these products changed?Are we in a danger of creating a whole different pattern of consuming the products  that feel ethically right to consume? Wont the "green-er" products  have their share of generating a carbon foot print and may be after [many many] years we might face the same challenges such as energy consumption/ waste generation etc. with the green-er products as well? I think we have to be inspired from nature to deal with this situation. If we look around and nature and learn from the other species that co-exist with us, "Eco conservation" might be the answer to our quest and not "Eco-consumerism". That not just owing the green products, but owning them in just the right quantity might also be the key.

 I have decided to be a part of this movement by owning the right amount of stuff, which is made up of right materials, those are processed in a right manner. By being honest about my necessities. At the back of my mind I can not stop thinking about the twenty pairs of socks I own. Some brought for their color, some for patterns, some for their soft material. Some of them used once, some of them never been  used. Not much money spent, never  given much attention to the whole socks (stuff) owning episode. I know I can not speak for everyone, but deep down everybody knows hows much is too much. I know my twenty pairs of socks are too much. I was told by another web site that if everybody lived like I did. that if everybody owned stuff as much as I do, we would need 3.5 earths to sustain, and that, most certainly  is not an option.