A sustainable society is going to gain its energy needs from sources that have no pollution output. Sources such as solar, wind, and hydrogen are the way to go. If we continue to use nuclear power and fossil fuels then we are setting ourselves up for failure. We know that a nuclear power plant has a limited lifetime. These plants are costly to build as well as dismantle. The danger we put ourselves in for terrorist attacks are not worth the continuation of polluting our planet. Dismantling a plant can take up to five years. We have radioactive waste that needs to be buried somewhere for 10,000 years without disturbance. That time span has been expanded. Could we really believe that there is such a place that hasn't been disturbed for that amount of time and will continue to remain undisturbed? We know the impacts are extremely severe should an accident happen. It doesn't matter how many scientists and politicians are out there saying every possible angle has been secured to prevent accidents; the word wouldn't be "accident" if they could all be prevented.
With nuclear power as well as alternative sources we have the NIMBY problem, a very understandable controversy. These arguments have to be weighed and measured. People who are worried about having nuclear power plants in their neighborhoods are worried for their safety. These worries should be held with great respect. People don't want the visual pollution. These wind farms would be placed offshore so as not to be so visually polluting. The benefits from these wind turbines are far too great to worry about aesthetic problems. If we continue to allow aesthetics to get in the way of preserving our environment, then later on down the road we aren't going to have an environment to worry about.
Solar energy is another wonderful sustainable energy. It is being provided to us by the sun every day. The sun has the same nuclear fusion takes place on the sun sending the energy to the earth and leaving the nuclear waste on the sun. What better way to provide sustainable energy than that? Harnessing this energy and using it in our buildings for heat and other such needs along with good insulation and landscaping is what we need to be pursuing right now more than anything. The sun isn't expected to burn out for another hundred billion years. We don't have to look any farther for a more sustainable energy source than to the sky. The drawbacks of solar energy would be in climates where the sun isn't always shining. A backup energy source would be needed for times such as these. If continue to have different sustainable energy sources then we can significantly reduce our CO2 emissions by a landslide. If we had all of these alternative energy sources in full effect the way we have coal and nuclear power plants then what would we need these unsustainable energy sources for?
