Nuclear Power Essay

Term Paper Title	Nuclear Power Essay
# of Words	538
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.15

Nuclear Power Essay

When it comes to the topic of Nuclear Power everyone has an opinion, and they are either for or against it. There really is no middle ground, and that is evident in the essays written by two highly respected scientists. One of them, Dr. John W. Gofman is a strong believer in the concept of exposure to radiation being fatal and dangerous to human health. Especially if the maximum allowed limit of nuclear radiation, 170 millirems/year, is reached. An opponent to Dr. Gofman is Dr. Bernard L. Cohen, a nuclear physicist turned environmental scientist, and ardent supporter of the current scientific establishment. Dr. Cohen believes that the general public has been manipulated by irresponsible journalists and "sensation-seeking" scientists into thinking that any and all exposure to radiation is harmful to human health. In this critique I plan on reviewing some of the major issues brought up by each side and try to show how each author has distorted or skewed data. Then I plan on giving my interpretation and opinion on the future of nuclear power.
Dr. Gofman seems to have many confusing ideas about the concept of nuclear power. First of all he shoots down the government for giving money to nuclear industries and claims that doing this is "totally inappropriate for government." I don't know if Dr. Gofman understands that we are kind of running out of energy sources, and until we better develop things like solar power to make them more useful and economical, we may need energy sources like nuclear power in the very near f...

Read entire document