Use Of Nuclear Energy In Modern World - Free Essay Example

Nuclear energy is form energy produced when Uranium nucelli are combined or fused to form one large atom that when its split into smaller atoms, produces energy that when harnessed is used in multiple sectors. The process of splitting the Uranium atoms is known as fission or fusion, and in the process, heat produced is used to create steam that is used to generate electricity. However, radioisotopes in non-stationary power reactors have been used in different sectors such as industries, medicine and scientific research, transport, food and agriculture and consumer products. Due to high demand of energy to support everchanging global transformation, human beings have invested heavily in the production of nuclear energy to solve and meet demands in day to day life. The use of nuclear energy has come with its advantages and disadvantages. First, the most popular use of nuclear energy is the generation of clean electricity which is now more preferred to other sources such as fossil fuel (coal and oil). Nuclear energy reactors produce energy that is harnessed to heat water to form steam that is used to run turbines to generate electricity. Fossil fuels are combusted to produce electricity and carbon dioxide and other gases that are major environmental pollutants (Petrescu, 2016). Secondly,   it generates a large amount of electric power compared to other sources such as hydroelectricity stations as it runs throughout the year and it is not affected by weather or climatic change. During dry weather seasons, hydroelectric production is affected by low water levels and only rises during   the rainy or wet seasons when water levels are high. Therefore, comparative generation of electric power in a nuclear energy reactor plant is relatively higher than that of the hydroelectric plant. Thirdly, nuclear energy has become a significant sector that has resulted in boosting most of the economies of the countries that uses nuclear power due to source energy. This boosts creativity, innovative and industrial capability of that particular state leading to high production of goods and services at lower cost, which in turn promotes the economy of a country. Energy independence reduces the cost of, therefore, favoring the economic growth of a nation (Kok,2017). Finally, the Uranium core used in the reactors is not full burnt up in the process of generation energy meaning it is capable of being re-used as compared to fossil fuel, that when burnt or combusted only produces energy and they cannot be re-used. It makes it a renewable source of energy that does not only generates clean energy but also, it is environmentally friendly by the used of transition technology produces zero waste. However, some disadvantages have come along with the use of nuclear energy that have adverse effects on mother nature and humans, because of the production uses radioactive elements. In case of a nuclear reactor accident, leakage of radioactive rays has devastating impact on the shrouding environment. For instance, cases of death have been reported in Chernobyl, Ukraine and Japan not mentioning disastrous environmental effects when a nuclear plant accident happened (Aoyama, 2016). The wasted produced are radioactive, and they are not environmentally friendly and may produces radiations that are harmful to life. To put up a nuclear energy plant requires high initial capital cost making it not accessible to most economies which makes it a disadvantage to use nuclear energy.   Generally, to establish a nuclear energy plant is one of the most expensive investments that an economy needs spend on the project (El-Emam,2015). This makes it not accessible to most of the countries and those who have been capable establish the reactors have experienced high cost of maintaining the nuclear plant reactor. When materials, whether solid, gas or liquid are used for an extended period in a nuclear energy reactor plant, is considered as radioactive waste when changed. This wastes that come from the nuclear reactor plant need to be safely disposed of or stored safely and conveniently recognizing dangers they pose to the environment and human life due to the high rate of radiative element that they produce. Scientific research has proven that exposure to radioactive waste can result in many health hazards which include cancer, down syndrome, defective on unborn children among other defects. Nuclear energy is a modern form of energy production that every state is thriving to achieve and establish a nuclear reactor plant to have a sustainable source of energy for its industrial and commercial uses. Many advantages come along with the use of nuclear power when it is properly harnessed and used property similarly; it is disastrous when it goes into the wrong way. Therefore, it is left at a state level to consider putting up a nuclear plant having analyzed its capability to establish and manage nuclear energy plant and cope up with dangers that come along with nuclear energy production

Findings About Jesus - Free Essay Example

This book was written by six authors and is edited by one of them. The editor, and orchestrator of the Jesus at 2000 symposium, is Marcus J. Borg. He became a faculty member of Oregon State University in 1979 and when he retired, he was a Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department. He was widely held as an influential and prominent voice in progressive Christianity, up to his death in 2015. He was educated at Concordia College in Minnesota, and then through a Rockefeller rothers Theological fellowship, he studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Theology degree at Mansfield College, Oxford. The author that I am focusing on Harvey Cox, was a Professor of Divinity at Harvard University for over 30 year at the Harvard Divinity School until he retired in 2009. He attended University of Pennsylvania, Yale Divinity School, and finally, received a Ph.D. degree in history and philosophy of religion from Harvard University in 1963. Before his retirement, he tried to keep in touch with Christianity as a whole, that is, how it was viewed and practiced in other parts of the world. He also called himself a church theologian, which meant he followed the church in its confrontations with the world. He is also an ordained American Baptist minister, showing that he is a believer and not just a scholar. What is this book about? This book is an adaptation of the symposium held in 1996 called Jesus at 2000. It features prominent scholars such as Harvey Cox, John Dominic Crossan, Alan F. Segal, Huston Smith, Karen Jo Torjesen, and Marcus J. Borg. It was a televised event that broke records and was made into a collection of each of the speakers lectures. It was created to be distributed in America and in Europe. In the Preface and Acknowledgements, it is noted that this book was to serve as a resource for undergraduate students taking one of their first religion studies classes. There are short questions and answers at the end of each section that were asked and replied to at the actual seminar. Each lecturer, that is also an author of the book, revised their portions of the text to give perspectives they have found in their studies on Jesus, historically, analytically, and culturally. What role does Jesus play in the book? In this book, where we have historians, philosophers, scholars, and analyst, Jes us serves as common ground when looking at cultures from each of the perspectives that the lecturers provide. Harvey Cox, for example, an analyst, gives his experience as a professor at Harvard University to present contemporary culture of Jesus. Historically and in present-day, we see that Jesus continues to be a figure that anyone would recognize. What was the thesisexplicit or implicitof the section you read? I read the revised lecture of Harvey Cox titled Jesus and Generation X. The thesis he offers is quite implicit, focusing on Jesus paradoxically increasing and decreasing influence on later generations, specifically Generation X, those born in between 1960 and 1980. Without actually being able to place them in any labeled group, he calls the an anomalous conglomerate, much like the variable X suggests. His unofficial study is ran parallel to his classes, in which he makes observations on his students perceptions and experiences with Jesus and religion in their day and age. He ends his lecture like he did his classes with the question that Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Phillipi: Who do you say that I am? in Mark 8:27. (Cox 91) Choose one passage that you found interesting, surprising, shocking etc. Type out the passage. Then, in your own words, explain the meaning of the passage. The cultural resymbolization of Jesus will undoubtedly continue and, I think, expand. But a very cr itical question remains: What is the relationship between the historical reconstruction of Jesus and the imaginative resymbolization of Jesus? What is the proper interplay between historical studies, on the one hand, and poetry, iconography, and cinema, on the other, for the spiritual life of twenty-first-century Generation Xs to come? Do the historical records and the canonical Scriptures set any limits on the freewheeling play of the religious imagination? Do the new imaginative portraits suggest anything about what historical research might be most appropriate? In short, do these two trajectories have anything to do with each other? I found this interesting because it reminds me of a different discussion in a classroom 700 miles away from where I am. It reminds me of the overlapping of science and religion, if there is such an overlap, and to which I thought there would be. To me this passage is saying that would you be able to separate the historical from the spiritual? Can you further historical knowledge on a person like Jesus without inhibiting another cultural aspect of him? This knowledge is obviously arising as we become further from the time of Jesus and really, the peak of religions puissance. But to say these trajectories, as Harvey Cox puts them, of history and culture are unrelated would be extreme. What did you learn about Jesusthe historical figure or the figure that the author presents? I have learned that Jesus place in the world is not going to be taken away. Even when we may think that a new generation would have no interest in religion, a persons curiosity and quest for a new hero will always bring us back to Jesus. I have never given the idea of religion or a deity or Jesus much thought but I have learned that it is inescapable, and actually a peak in my interest. The contemporary role that Jesus figure plays teaches me that humans need a great man character. What was familiar about this Jesus? To my previous knowledge of Jesus, it was familiar that he was a fading figure to a lot of those around me. It was familiar that although I viewed him as I did, he was also so important to others, that it seemed he was actually a revived character. These two ideas are present in Coxs experience with his students at Harvard. What was strange about this Jesus? In the book, Cox describes Jesus in the eyes of a practicing Buddhist artist from Sri Lanka. He describes the image as Jesus sitting in the lotus position, surrounded by the ugly demons of ego, but with his right hand touching the earth, as the Buddhas did at his moment of enlightenment (Cox 95). He also describes an image of what we are to assume is Jesus as a crucified Jew wearing Jewish prayer shawl and surrounded by drawings of the expulsions, pogroms, and murders that have pursued the Jewish people for centuries (Cox 96). These two images are strange to me because I have never seen Jesus in the image of Buddha or as a Jew that is crucified. When Jesus comes to mind, I picture a bearded white man, wearing a crown of thorns, skinny and lacerated, on a cross. I have not pictured him as an enlightened one. What do you think is the meaning of the image youve chosen? What does it say about Jesus or about the authors views of Jesus? From this picture, I believe that it gives Jesus age, not just from the title of Jesus at 2000. But from what he is shown to be. Because this book had multiple authors, and each of them had different backgrounds and experiences with Jesus, I think this would be a fair representation from each of their views of him. Although they do not see him as a black man or an Israelite with bronze skin like the history of the world seems to suggest, their image can be said to represent an important and wise Jesus.