Source Entry – “Nuclear Power: why is it unpopular?”

MLA Citation

“Nuclear Power: why is it unpopular?”, Youtube, uploaded by The Economist, 5 March 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sjo1B3j_JM 

Summary

“Nuclear Power: why is it unpopular” from The Economist, is about the negative perception of nuclear power despite it being such a reliable, and efficient energy source that provides a tremendous amount of power. It’s mentioned that nuclear power is essential for fighting climate change, coal and natural gasses makeup over 60% of the global electricity generation, and at the same time pollute the climate with the burning of those fuels. However nuclear power only accounts for 10% of the global electricity generation as a clean, and reliable energy source making it questionable as to why it’s not more widespread. (Around 0:52 seconds in the video). In the 1960s, this campaign about how nuclear energy would poison the world just by being active became more widespread. Environmental activists started to turn against nuclear power plants, and this caused the common people to think that the failure of a nuclear power plant would be comparable to an atomic bomb, as the entire world had witnessed a decade before. None of this was true but it ended up spreading fast (4:44 in the video). Following this growing paranoia, movies like the china syndrome would be made as propaganda against nuclear power. It didn’t help that events like Chernobyl and Fukushima occurred after, causing each accident to stoke fears about nuclear power. However “Nuclear power is one of the safest forms of energy production. Although the official death toll of Fukushima stands at almost 600. All of these fatalities, bar one, are attributed to the stress of the evacuation” (6:50 in the video).  “So we had a huge scale meltdown at Fukushima, but it didn’t kill people. It causes a huge bill for cleaning up. But it didn’t kill people.” (7:07 in video). There is an exaggerated idea about nuclear power plants being a cause for concern in everyday life, when that’s not true. “A well regulated nuclear power is not a dangerous object” (7:17 in video)

Rhetorical Analysis

The genre is video. The author is Oliver Morton, a senior briefings editor for the source The Economist. Oliver Morton is credible as he specializes in the energy business and climate issues. The appeal of logos is seen in the video by comparing the worst nuclear power plant failures to other industrial failures, and showing how little people suffered in comparison. The appeal to pathos is shown through the graphs in the video, to show that nuclear power related incidents are not serious as one might think and exaggerated by the media. The author appeals to ethos by showing research he’s found relating to nuclear power plant disasters. This video is intended for a general audience, and the purpose is to inform them about how nuclear power is actually safe contrary to what most people think. And that we should switch to nuclear power in the future. The occasion is the ever changing climate and energy crisis the world was going through back when the video was published. The source, The Economist, is known for being one of the least biased platforms, and for winning various European Publishing Awards making this source extremely credible. The information of this video is current, as it was written 3 years ago, and talks about the effects of energy production on our ever changing climate. Which we can currently see the effects of today.

Notable Quotes

“Compared to other forms of energy production, the death rate from nuclear energy is very low” (7:22 in video)

“Nuclear power is one of the safest forms of energy production. Although the official death toll of Fukushima stands at almost 600. All of these fatalities bar one, are attributed to the stress of the evacuation” (6:50 in the video)

“Had a huge scale meltdown at Fukushima, but it didn’t kill people. It cause a huge bill for cleaning up. But it didn’t kill people.” (7:07 in video)

“In normal operations and these days even when breaking down, a well regulated nuclear power is not a dangerous object” (7:17 in video)

“Compared to other forms of energy, the death rate for nuclear energy is very low. On average it kills one person every 14 years” (7:28 in video)

“In 2013 climatologists James Hansen and Pushker Kharecha calculated that the use of nuclear power between 1971 and 2009 prevented the deaths of 1.84 million people thanks to its air-pollution benefits” (7:35 in video)