Nuclear Power: Is it Necessary?
In its attempts to harness the power of the atom, mankind has itself in the possession of weapons with unbelievable, destructive power. Nations now have the ability to destroy entire cities from hundreds of miles away, in only minutes. These weapons are nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons cost the citizens of the United States billions of dollars in taxes each year, the testing and maintenance of these weapons pose serious health risks, and the actual need for these weapons is not and has not been around for years. For the above reasons, the United States should reduce its nuclear arsenal.
Nuclear weapons derive their power from the energy released when a heavy nucleus is divided, called fission or when light nuclei are forced together, called fusion. In fission, a nucleus from a heavy element is bombarded with neutrons. The nucleus breaks into two pieces, releasing energy and two or more neutrons. Each of these neutrons has enough energy to split another heavy nucleus, allowing the process to repeat itself. This is the chain reaction that makes nuclear weapons possible. In a fusion nuclear device such as a hydrogen bomb, lightweight nuclei are forced to fuse at very high temperatures into heavier nuclei, releasing energy and a neutron. In order to squeeze the two nuclei together, an atomic fission bomb is usually used. A fusion reaction releases about four times more energy per unit mass than a fission reaction. The United States supervised the development of the atomic bomb under the code name Manhattan Project, during World War II. The first nuclear chain reaction occurred in December 1942, at the University of Chicago. Soon after the first bomb test, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The first hydrogen bomb was developed by a team of United States scientists and was first tested on November 1, 1952. After World War II, a new age of military strategy occurred. The United States built up massive nuclear weapons arsenals and developed highly sophisticated systems of delivery and defense. Today's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) carry one or more multiple, independently targeted reentry vehicles (MIBVs), each with its own nuclear war head.
Billions of dollars are wasted in taxes, each year, to pay for nuclear weapons (Rosenberg 1). The United States has spent about...
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...tructive. Anyone with the experiences of World War II behind them would not want to repeat the horror of that. Even before the nuclear bomb had been perfected, world war had become spectacularly costly and destructive, killing over fifty million people world wide (Cameron 66).
Nuclear weapons are weapons of great destruction. Our government wastes over thirty-three billion dollars a year of our tax money. Also, nuclear weapons pose serious health risks to those around them, including the citizens of the United States. There has not been a significant impact on world affairs by nuclear weapons since World War II. For these reasons, the United States should reduce its nuclear arsenal.
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The development of atomic bomb boosted the level of understanding in terms of physics and chemistry of that particular time period. Physicists started to realize that stable nuclei can be converted to unstable nuclei. Through such process, they discovered that heavy nuclei can undergo nuclear fission. While testing, they added a neutron to an isotope of Uranium 235. This resulted Uranium 235 to become unstable and break down into Barium and Krypton, releasing two to three more neutrons. The breakdown of Uranium 235 is called “fission”. When the released neutrons attach to other isotopes of Uranium 235, this can result in a chain reaction of fission. For every generation of fission, the amount of fission is doubled, and this resulted in an extreme outburst of energy. The amount of energy released by this process is related to Einstein’s famous equation “E=mc^2” (Wolf).
Together with the Soviet Union we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process of limiting nuclear arms. But we must set as our goal not just limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons so that they cannot destroy civilization and so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world and the people.
Atomic Bomb The use of the atomic bombs on Japan was necessary for the revenge of the Americans. These bombs took years to make due to a problematic equation. The impact of the bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people and the radiation is still killing people today. People today still wonder why the bombs were dropped. If these bombs weren’t dropped on the Japanese the history of the world would have been changed forever. The Atomic bomb took 6 years to develop (1939-1945) for scientists to work on a equation to make the U-235 into a bomb. The most complicated process in this was trying to produce enough uranium to sustain a chain reaction. The bombs used on the cities cost about $2 billion to develop, this also making the U.S. wanting to use them against Japan. “Hiroshima was a major military target and we have spent 2 billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history- and won.” (3) The bomb dropped on Hiroshima weighted 4.5 tons and the bomb used on Nagasaki weighted 10 kilotons. On July 16, 1945, the first ever atomic bomb was tested in the Jamez Mountains in Northern New Mexico, code named “Gadget.” The single weapon ultimately dropped on Hiroshima, nicknamed “Little Boy,” produced the amount of approximately twenty- thousand tons of TNT, which is roughly seven times greater than all of the bombs dropped by all the allies on all of Germany in 1942. The first Japanese City bomb was Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. An American B-29 bomber, named Enola Gay, flown by the pilot Paul W. Tibbets, dropped the “Little Boy” uranium atomic bomb. Three days later a second bomb named ”Fat Boy,” made of plutonium was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. After being released, it took approximately one minute for Little Boy to reach the point of explosion, which was about 2,000 feet. The impact of the bombs on the cities and people was massive. Black rain containing large amounts of nuclear fallout fell as much as 30km from the original blast site. A mushroom cloud rose to twenty thousand feet in the air, and sixty percent of the city was destroyed. The shock wave and its reverse effect reached speeds close to those of the speed of sound. The wind generated by the bombs destroyed most of the houses and buildings within a 1.
Eric Schollser argues in his paper “Today’s Nuclear Dilemma,” that the nuclear weapons in the world, and the issues that they are associated with, should be of major concern to today’s society. Nuclear weapons were of worldwide concern during the time of the Cold War. These weapons, and their ability to cause colossal devastation, brought nightmares into reality as the threat of nuclear war was a serious and imminent issue. The US and Russia both built up their inventories of these pieces of artillery, along with the rest of their arsenals, in an attempt to overpower the other. This past terror has become a renewed concern because many of the countries with these nuclear weapons in their control have started to update their collections.
In today’s society, many countries and even citizens of the United States question the U.S. government’s decision to get involved in nuclear warfare. These people deemed it unnecessary and stated that the U.S. is a hypocrite that preaches peace, but causes destruction and death. Before and during World War II the U.S. was presented with a difficult decision on whether or not to develop and use the atomic bomb. The U.S. decided to develop the atomic bomb based on the fear they had for the safety of the nation. In August 1939 nuclear physicists sent manuscripts to Albert Einstein in fear the Germany might use the new knowledge of fission on the uranium nucleus as way to construct weapons.
The USA’s new weapon, the Hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, was one of the most powerful weapons of the time. In 1950, the H-bomb was tested in the Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands (Cold War History). The reaction was so fierce, the explosion wiped the island off the face of the earth, leaving a crater on the ocean floor. The explosion reached a range of 25 square miles and had a mushroom cloud which dropped radioactive fallout on the surrounding areas (The Cold War Museum). This new weapon scared the Soviet Union into creating their own bombs.
At 5:30 AM July 16th 1945, the nuclear age had started. The world’s first atomic bomb was detonated. On August 6th 1942 at 8:15 AM, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped a perfected atomic bomb created by the Americans, over the city of Hiroshima hoping to end the war. Thousands of people died in the two cities in Japan. They were Hiroshima and Nagasaki “the Manhattan Project”. The research and development project that produced these atomic bombs during this time was known as “the Manhattan Project”.
The development and usage of the first atomic bombs has caused a change in military, political, and public functionality of the world today. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki revolutionized warfare by killing large masses of civilian population with a single strike. The bombs’ effects from the blast, extreme heat, and radiation left an estimated 140,000 people dead. The bombs created a temporary resolution that lead to another conflict. The Cold War was a political standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States that again created a new worldwide nuclear threat. The destructive potential of nuclear weapons had created a global sweep of fear as to what might happen if these terrible forces where unleashed again. The technology involved in building the first atomic bombs has grown into the creation of nuclear weapons that are potentially 40 times more powerful than the original bombs used. However, a military change in strategy has came to promote nuclear disarmament and prevent the usage of nuclear weapons. The technology of building the atomic bomb has spurred some useful innovations that can be applied through the use of nuclear power. The fear of a potential nuclear attack had been heightened by the media and its release of movies impacting on public opinion and fear of nuclear devastation. The lives lost after the detonation of the atomic bombs have become warning signs that changed global thinking and caused preventative actions.
Since the deployment of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the world has been threatened by nuclear weapons. Although there has not been a nuclear accident, the risk of having one is not impossible. Presently the world has enough nuclear warheads to wipe out all civilization. As technology advanced, more sophisticated and deadly nuclear weapons were built. More countries have nuclear capabilities than there were 50 years ago. As dangerous as nuclear weapons may seem, many have believed that nuclear deterrence had prevented danger of war during period of Cold War. Now that the cold war has ended and Russia is struggling in their economy and the relationship between US and Russia has improved, should nuclear weapons be abolished and is this abolition possible?
The first thing to know about nuclear weapons is exactly how much money they have cost the United States? Since the first government supported work on nuclear weapons began in 1940, the United States has spent approximately $4 trillion on its nuclear arsenal as of 1995. This figure is roughly 3 times what the United States spent on World War II. It should also be mentioned that with overhead costs required to develop, produce, deploy, operate, support, and control these weapons, the total would come to approximately an extra $500 billion to $1 trillion dollars once all known costs are documented. Since the conclusion of World War II in 1945, nuclear weapons have been held accountable for the consumption of one quarter to one third of the United States’ military budget.
The nuclear bomb was the most devastating weapon ever created by man. It was developed between 1942 and 1945 during the second World War. The project to build the worlds first atomic weapon was called The Manhattan Project. The nuclear bomb was based on the idea of splitting an atom to create energy, this is called fission. Three bombs were created, “Trinity”, “Little Boy”, and “Fat Man”. “Trinity” was dropped on a test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, proving the theories, engineering and mathematics of the bomb to be correct. Shortly after that, not more than 2 months, the U.S. performed the first actual nuclear attack in the history of war. The bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on the town of Hiroshima, instantly killing thousands. “Fat Man” was dropped shortly after on the town of Nagasaki. After the bombing almost all scientist involved with the creation of the bomb regretted its construction and spoke out against the abolishment of nuclear weapons.
Our world is filled with a constant threat of Nuclear detonation and the ensuing fallout of such an attack. This Leads to the question would the world be safer without nuclear arms? Nuclear weapon is defined as “A bomb or missile that uses nuclear energy to cause an explosion.” (Oxford Dictionary, 2016) Nuclear weapons are one of the most destructive devices known to man, and as such the masses have cried for their use to be abolished following the Cold War. Two nuclear bombs have ever been dropped during a war, both on Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during World War II by the United States. While these bombs were devastating for their time they are easily outclassed by current Nuclear technologies. The Tsar Bomba, the most powerful bomb ever created and tested by man, was limited to 50 megatons or 50 million tons of Dynamite. The Tsar Bomba’s yield was limited for its testing however, with sections being replaced with lead instead of weapons grade nuclear material halving its explosive power. These weapons are apparent
The world’s conflict over nuclear weapons all began with President Truman’s decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II was coming to a close but Japan would not surrender. So, on August 6, 1945, the bomb Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. It was triggered by a gun mechanism where a small piece of uranium-235 was fired down a barrel into a larger piece. This caused an explosion of 15 kilotons, or 15,000 tons of TNT, killing 90,000 to 166,000 people. Surprisingly, Japan did not surrender, so on August 9, 1945, the bomb Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. It was triggered when shock waves from high explosives set off the plutonium-239 core. It caused an explosion of 20 kilotons, or 20,000 tons of TNT, and killed 60,000 to 80,000 people. This second attack really sent the message to Japan, and they finally surrendered on August 15, 1945. World War II was finally over, but the Cold War began with the reveal of the United States’ nuclear power. It is believed that dropping the bombs saved both Japanese and American lives by ending the w...
The cold war, an issue of global importance in 1947-1991 that prompted the creation of the H-bomb in 1949 when the Soviets had successfully detonated an atomic bomb (The First hydrogen bomb test, 2011). By using the previously developed formulas and techniques that made the atomic bomb, the combination of nuclear fission and fusion created the H-bomb, a weapon of significantly higher destructive power than the nuclear bomb during this time (The Development and Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, n.d.). While the atomic bomb used fission to get its destructive power the thermonuclear bomb used a combination of both. Fission would work as a trigger to the fusion. For the process that the H-bomb goes through it is necessary to have fission happen
All over the world, every nation and country have nuclear weapons at hand. Nuclear weapons help protect those countries and nations, they provide global defense. If nuclear weapons were to be outlawed and were no longer able to use then it would decrease the amount of jobs in the nuclear field. Although these weapons of mass destruction can be extremely dangerous and cause harm for billions of people; nuclear weapons provide jobs for many people across the nation. Not only does banning nuclear weapons take away the amount of occupations, but it goes against the right to bear arms. The second