Prison Industrial Complex.

Your second Critical Responses requires that you find a scholarly article on your own dealing with stratification in the criminal justice system and write a brief report on this article relating it to issues discussed in your Ferrante text. You are required to find something that has to do with the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), but are not limited to just this topic. For example, you can get an article that deals with this issue (PIC) in addition to other issues that deal with the criminal justice system as it relates to chapter six.

and my article is “African American Men and the Prison Industrial Complex. ”

Sami Alotaibi

Mrs.D.Escobio

EH 101

Sep 28. 2011

The Summary of “Why Uranium Is the New Green”, written by William Sweet

Sweet argues against the continuing usage of coal fire plants and recommends the full adaptation of wind and nuclear energy sources in order to mitigate coal harms. The wastes of coal fired plants generate a significant amount of carbon dioxide, which affects human life as well as degrading the environment. Sweet elaborates on the merits of adopting nuclear and wind energy and notes that the myths associated especially with nuclear energy are baseless. In a balanced tradeoff between the merits and demerits of nuclear and wind energy as compared to coal energy, Sweet presents his arguments by use of current and past examples as noted in this summary of his work.The use of nuclear energy and wind energy is more beneficial as compared to the traditional coal fired plants which is the source of increased percentage of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming and an increased respiratory diseases which have significantly contributed to thousands of premature deaths.

As explained by Sweet, it is essential for the United States to consider carbon emission cuts from coal fired plants in order to mitigate emission of greenhouse gases. Sweet notes that more that 50% of electricity is generated from coal yet coal is one of the causes of premature deaths in the US claiming more than 20,000 people per year. More so, coal plants generate an estimate of 50 tons of mercury into the environment as well as contributing to environmental degradation as evident in coal mines in West Virginia and Wyoming. The entire mining and processing also produced a significant amount of wastes which affects human, as well as the environment. The implementation of clean coal is yet to yield positive fruits since it has not been used yet. The congress has continually debated on the need and ways of cutting carbon dioxide emissions (Couppis, Evis, Gelalt, and Matthias, et al 1). Notably the level of carbon dioxide and its related products emission is on the increase as a result of coal power plants, vehicles and other fossil fuels (Couppis, Evis, Gelalt, and Matthias, et al 1).

Sweet recommends the usage of nuclear and wind power as proven alternative sources of power which have been tested over time. Sweet notes that the U.S. nuclear plan is not vulnerable as compared to the Soviet Union plan. The Chernobyl accident in 1986 Soviet system plan led to the worst nuclear accidents in the nuclear history. The rationale for this is because of the distinct nuclear reactor design and the maintenance programs that the US has devised. More so, security concerns have been addressed adequately.The author cited the 1979 Three Mile island disaster in which fortunately no one was hurt. Despite the fact that nuclear wastes are highly toxic, its release is only about 2,000 tons per annum as compared to enormous amounts of carbon dioxide released by coal “Nearly 2 billion tons per year” as indicated by Sweet.

Wind turbines are already generating electricity in an economically as fossils fuels. This is as a result of “two cents per kilowatt-hour” indicated by Sweet as an incentive generated by the U.S. government. Their construction is in such a way that it increased the quantity of electricity generated by wind by approximately three gigawattsa year. Notably the implementation of wind energy, nuclear energy and clean coal are about 25 % to 75 % more expensive as compared to the traditional coal energy.

In the US, there are no cases of reported deaths caused by nuclear wastes. This is in contrary to the fact that thousands of people are dying as a result of coal releases. Most of the diseases caused by carbon releases are respiratory related diseases such as lung cancer and bronchitis. This is not mentioning the environmental effects such as global warming, which has been a major debating issue in the United States as well as other industrialized countries. Sweet acknowledges that nuclear power may encourage “proliferations of atomic weapons” but argues that countries obtain nuclear reactors in order to build nuclear weapons and not vice versa. He cites countries such as China, France, Israel and India as examples.

            As argued by Sweet, nuclear and wind energy are more efficient, reliable and a safer means of acquiring energy as compared to the cheap yet harmful fossil energy which has contributed to increased premature deaths and environmental degradation. Global warming as a result of greenhouse gases is primarily caused by release of carbon dioxide and its compounds to the atmosphere. On the contrary, the use of nuclear and wind energy has no recorded human harms specifically in the United States. This is because of the safety measures and constant maintenance of the nuclear reactors that the US has implemented as compared to the poor implementation in the Soviet Union.

Work Cited

Couppis, Evis, Gelalt and Matthias, et al. “Carbon dioxide Regulation.”  Power Magazine 3       April: 1-11.