Class Debate Help (((Fossil Fuels vs. Nuclear Energy)))?

Question

this is something i need badly, there is a debate between Fossil fuels and nuclear energy. I'm the leader for my half of the class. I've researched and i've gotten a few things but i need more.i need at least a counter to every disadvantage of fossil fuel that the other team might throw in my way. and i'm sure you guys can help me come up with more advantages of fossil fuel than the most well know and less known disadvantages of nuclear energy. I NEED ANSWERS PLZ =]

Here is the basic info that i have:

advantages of fossil fuels

>Straightforward combustion process

>Relatively inexpensive

>Easily transported

disadvantages of fossil fuels

>Thought to be a major cause of global warming

>Cause of acid rain

>Not sustainable in the long-term

>Politics and Economics can cause major price increases

>Extraction can be very damaging to the landscape

Any debate tips could be helpful too

Answer 1

Additional advantages:

> Wide geographical distribution. Resources that are located in only a few countries of the world are risky to rely upon. Petrochemicals on the other hand are produced in a vast number of places, meaning that political problems in any one place have a limited effect upon world supply.

> Requires no conversion of infrastructure. In order to eliminate petrochemicals you would have to eliinate virtually every vehicle on earth and replace them with electric vehicles. Besides having to replace the vehicles themselves, the country does not have the electrical infrastructure to charge millions of electric cars, trucks and buses. Every electric grid would fail.

> Flexibility of use. You can ramp up coal-fired electricity pretty quickly, and ramp it down just as quickly. In contrast, nuclear plants are much slower to adapt to peak surges and cannot be quickly shut down.

> Petrochemicals have limited potential for abuse. the more nuclear materials we have lying around, the more likely that some will fall into the wrong hands.

> We do not currently have the technology to store energy efficiently enough to eliminate all combustion-based transportation - especially aircraft. Try creating a battery-powered jumbo jet! No way to eliminate petrochemicals for some large segments of the transportation industry.

> Fossil fuels are easily supplemented with other hydrocarbon fuels such as ethanol or biodiesel. Nuclear energy has no fallback fuels other than more nuclear.

Regarding the disadvantages you listed:

> The global warming connection is only a theory. We should not change the whole infrastructure of our society on the basis of a theory.

> The acid rain issue is a different issue. Acid rain comes from the sulfur within some petrochemicals, that can be removed any time that we decide to do so. You do not have to remove fossil fuels to remove acid rain.

> What is the "long term"? Current sources of fossil fuel, if they are extended to include coal reserves, oil shales and tar sands, are present in sufficient quantities to last a few centuries. We cannot make any meaningful predictions about what technologies will be in use that far into the future, or what resources we will require. By that time we may be powering everything by fusion. For the foreseeable future, the sources of fossil fuels are more than adequate.

> Supply and demand affects ANY commodity, not just fossil fuels. Nuclear materials are concentrated in fewer countries than are petrochemicals.

> Environmental/landscape damage is not exclusive to fossil fuels, and is to a large extent controllable depending on whether or not we CHOOSE as a society to remediate mined areas.

(Don't forget oil spills... they will come up).

Tips:  Your class is already about 90% indoctrinated and brainwashed by the global warming / Gore scam. You will NOT be able to undo this over the course of the debate. this means that all the opposition has to do is to keep the argument around global warming, and they will win. Do not let them! Every time the opposition tries to drag you down the global warming path, steer the conversation rapidly to something else.  

Your silver bullet is the "radiation" paranoia. Your classmates are indoctrinated to fear nuclear waste, and that works to your advantage. Focus upon the storage of nuclear waste,  leakage of radionucleotides into the water table, transportation accidents, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, terrorists with dirty bombs.  Nuclear paranoia is almost as big a scam as the global warming issue, but this one works to your advantage rather than your disadvantage. The more you talk about radioactive hazards, the closer you are to victory.