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Showing posts from September, 2019

What does it require?

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Each one of us is gifted and talented. But what distinguishes one from another? Why are some people at a higher status than others? It all settles down to three qualities: consistent, persistent and perseverance provided you have a clear plan in your mind. According to Oxford, Consistent is ‘ acting in the same way over time, especially so as to be fair or accurate. ’ Persistent is ‘continuing firmly or obstinately in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. ’ Perseverance is ‘persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. ’ It is true that some people are born with certain abilities but if they don’t work on it and do not develop themselves, it all goes in vain. We often look at highly successful people and say, ‘Man how lucky is he/she’ or things like ‘I wish I was that lucky’. What we don’t look is how they have applied these three qualities in their everyday life to reach where they are today. But then we sta

Nuclear power phase-out is not the solution.

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“A  nuclear power phase-out  is the discontinuation of usage of  nuclear power  for energy production. Often initiated because of  concerns about nuclear power , phase-outs usually include shutting down  nuclear power plants  and looking towards  fossil fuels  and  renewable energy . ” Global nuclear power supply has fallen from 18% in the late 1950s to 11% in 2019. But does it help? Environmentalists concerned about global warming must reconsider their anti-nuclear views. The earth is warming at an ever-increasing rate and we must take immediate action. We cannot reverse the process, but we can at least slow it down. Renewables are a great solution to our problem, but they are still immature. We need a reliable source of electricity to completely replace fossils fuels. Solar and wind have their advantages and disadvantages. The sun doesn’t shine all day, and the wind doesn’t blow every day. Batteries are still under-developed and have a long way until we can completely rely on the

WHAT MADE CHERNOBYL THE WORST?

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The accident at Chernobyl in 1986 is the worst nuclear disaster in history. It was due to reactor meltdown. The same meltdown was the reason for accidents at Three Mile Island (1979) and Fukushima (2011). But what is it that made Chernobyl stand out? A simple explanation would be 'the absence of a containment structure around the reactor'. A containment structure is reinforced steel or lead  enclosing a  nuclear reactor . It prevents the spread of radiation to its surrounding in case of plant failure. Chernobyl was built in 1970, a time when Cold War was prevalent between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The two did not share their advances in technology with each other. Due to which the soviet was uninformed about the necessary containment structure needed to build around a fission reactor. At the time of the explosion, the radiation spread through Europe causing cancer rates to go higher.   There were many other reasons which made Chernobyl worse but th

History of Conventional Energy Sources

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In the late 16th-century, firewood costs increased. Fast forward to the 1880s, Elizabethan preachers were left with one solution: coal. Coal was considered the devil's excrement due to its hazardous nature, it released   sulfur, ozone, radionuclides, benzene, etc. Natural gas being less toxic became the next hit. Excessive use of natural gas for energy production led to its shortage followed by the Emergency Natural Gas Act in 1977. Petroleum and crude oil have been commercially used to generate electricity since the 19-century. After the first oil shock in 1953, nuclear increased its energy production rate. In 1979, the meltdown at TMI-2 slowed down nuclear power plant constructions. The worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl (1986) brought the power plant constructions to a full-stop. During the mid-1990s, when the world had partially forgotten about Chernobyl and resumed construction of nuclear plants, the reactor meltdown at Fukushima in 2011 brought the world to a shock. N