hand, some business men and economists say that the presentconditions should be kept intact, as the other forms of energy, e.g. oil,natural gas and coal, are only temporary, in dealing with surplus, and give offmore pollution with less economic growth. Concurrently, countries wanted a morereliable, smokeless form of energy not controlled by OPEC, and very littleuranium was required to produce such a high amount of resultant energy. Lastly,they said that renewable energy is (a) unreliable in that the wind, for example,could not be depended upon to blow, nor the sun to shine, and (b) wereintermittent in that a 1,000 mega-watt solar farm may occupy about 5,000 acresof land, compared with less than 150 acres of land for a similar capacitynuclear power generation station. Because the energy technology that society employs directly influences thequantity and quality of life, the energy option that is chosen should have thegreatest cost- benefit effectiveness as well as maximizing flexibility andpurchases. However, those who believe in continuous energy consumption growth,seem to forget that there is only a limited supply of energy in every energysystem, and to "overdo" any resource may provide for an unacceptable impact uponglobal and regional ecology. Thus, if the business world pushes the environment as far as it can go,Ceribus Paribus, please refer to figure 1. Thus, to use petroleum as asubstitute for uranium, which is needed to power the nuclear system, would notbe economically or environmentally sensible. I say this because, first of all,there is a major supply of uranium considering it was one of the last energysources to be found as well as only a small amount of it is required to producea lot of energy. Secondly, petroleum gives off carbon monoxide which is one ofthe reasons for ozone depletion; whereas, the uranium does not give offpollution except that it produces plutonium which needs to be buried for morethan fifty yea...
