Nuclear Waste Disposal At Yucca Mountain: Right Or Wrong? Essay

Nuclear Waste Disposal At Yucca Mountain: Right or Wrong?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As the United States' nuclear waste buildup becomes larger, the need for a permanent storage facility becomes more urgent. One proposed site is in the Yucca Mountains of Nevada. This makes many Nevadans uneasy, as visions of three-legged babies and phosphorescent people come to mind. This is an unfounded worry, as many reasons prove. In fact, the Yucca Mountains provide an ideal site for a permanent underground nuclear waste facility in the U.S.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  While the Yucca Mountains are the best site we have found as of yet, this procedure will cost a huge amount of taxpayer dollars. The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates the total cost of its high-level waste management program at $25-35 billion. Completing the scientific investigation and licensing of the Yucca Mountain site is expected to cost $6-7 billion alone. At the end of 1993, total nuclear waste fund expenditures through the end of the year were nearly 3.7 billion. Very little of this money comes from individual investors. If a retrievable facility (one where the casks of spent fuel can be retrieved later) is built, this will be a good deal more. Other disposal types, such as sub- seabed and space disposal may prove to be cheaper at a later time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This is a cause for concern, but there are a greater amount of reasons to further and eventually finish the Yucca Mountain Project. One is the desert climate naturally occurring in the western United States. The weather is dry and warm and their are very few natural disasters, such as earthquakes. Also, this part of the nation has a lower water table than the rest of the country. This reduces the risk of water contamination in case of a breach.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This is only one safety cushion that the proposed site provides. There are several more. All of these factors add up to a relatively stable environment. But will it be stable enough? If a permanent site is constructed, it will have to remain stable for 10,000 years. This is a very long time, considering the United States has only existed for a little over 200. During this period, if a breach occurs, the western United States' water supply could become contaminated, and cost the federal government even more to clean. The question is whether or not t... ...orage structure. Also, fractures in the salt are self-sealing, which will stop radiation for simply floating up to the surface through pores, cracks, or faults in the rock. This type of host rock (the rock that surrounds the site) will give the site both a man-made and natural protection. But perhaps the most beneficial protection is the remoteness of the location of the site. Located in Nevada, which has a very low population density (only 0-2 people per square mile*) the risk of humans accidentally tampering with the repository is very low. Also to be noted is that there will be no construction or utility digging. Nevadans will see to it that the site stays untouched.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All points taken, the Yucca Mountains are currently the best spot to store the country's ever growing buildup of nuclear waste. Due to it's remote location, secure land formations, and low water table, this area provides an ideal and secure spot for the huge amount of potentially harmful material. The U.S. is in dire need of a permanent nuclear waste disposal site, and this is the best option right now. The usual dawdle of the federal government will only act against us in this matter.

Guidelines on Writing a Research Proposal

Guidelines on writing a research proposal Introduction This is a guide to writing M. A. research proposals. The same principles apply to dissertation proposals and to proposals to most funding agencies. It includes a model outline, but advisor, committee and funding agency expectations vary and your proposal will be a variation on this basic theme. Use these guidelines as a point of departure for discussions with your advisor. They may serve as a straw-man against which to build your understanding of both your project and of proposal writing. For USM students, the same rules apply as for proposals everywhere in the world. Proposal Writing Proposal writing is important to your pursuit of a graduate degree. The proposal specifies what you will do, how you will do it, and how you will interpret the results. In specifying what will be done it also gives criteria for determining whether it is done. In approving the proposal, your committee gives their best judgment that the approach to the research is reasonable and likely to yield the anticipated results. Both parties benefit from an agreed upon plan. The objective in writing a proposal is to describe what you will do, why it should be done, how you will do it and what you expect will result. Being clear about these things from the beginning will help you complete your thesis in a timely fashion. A good thesis proposal hinges on a good idea. Once you have a good idea, you can draft the proposal in an evening. Getting a good idea hinges on familiarity with the topic. This assumes a longer preparatory period of reading, observation, discussion, and incubation. Read everything that you can in your area of interest. Figure out what are the important and missing parts of our understanding. Figure out how to build/discover those pieces. Live and breathe the topic. Talk about it with anyone who is interested. Then just write the important parts as the proposal. Filling in the things that we do not know and that will help us know more: that is what research is all about. Proposals help you estimate the size of a project. Don't make the project too big. Your proposal will be perhaps five pages and certainly no more than fifteen pages long. For perspective, the American National Science Foundation limits the length of proposal narratives to 15 pages, even when the request might be for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is the merit of the proposal which counts, not the weight. ) Shoot for five pithy pages that indicate to a relatively well-informed audience that you know the topic and how its logic hangs together, rather than fifteen or twenty pages that indicate that you have read a lot of things but not yet boiled it down to a set of prioritized linked questions. Different Theses, Similar Proposals In the abstract all proposals are very similar. They need to show a reasonably informed reader why a particular topic is important to address and how you will do it. To that end, a proposal needs to show how your work fits into what is already known about the topic and what new contribution your work will make. Specify the question that your research will answer, establish why it is a significant question, show how you are going to answer the question, and indicate what you expect we will learn. The proposal should situate the work in the literature, it should show why this is an (if not the most) important question to answer in the field, and convince your committee that your approach will in fact result in an answer to the question. Theses which address research questions that can be answered by making plan-able observations (and hypothesis testing) are preferred and perhaps the easiest to write. Because they address well-bounded topics, they can be very tight, but they do require more planning on the front end. Theses which re largely based on synthesis of observations, rumination, speculation, and opinion formation are harder to write, and usually not as convincing, often because they address questions which are not well-bounded and essentially unanswerable. Literature review-based theses involve collection of information from the literature, distillation of it, and coming up with new insight on an issue. One problem with this type of research is that you might find the perfect succinct answer to your question on the night before (or after) you turn in the final draft — in someone else's work. This certainly can knock the wind out of your sails. (But note that even a straight-ahead science thesis can have the problem of late in the game discovering that the work you have done or are doing has already been done, this is where familiarity with the relevant literature by both yourself and your committee members is important. ) A Couple of Models for Proposals A Two Page (Preliminary Proposal) Model Here is a model for a very brief (maybe five paragraph) proposal that you might use to interest faculty in sitting on your committee. People who are not yet hooked may especially appreciate its brevity. In the first paragraph, the first sentence identifies the general topic area. The second sentence gives the research question, and the third sentence establishes its significance. The next couple of paragraphs gives the larger historical perspective on the topic. Essentially list the major schools of thought on the topic and very briefly review the literature in the area with its major findings. Who has written on the topic and what have they found? Allocate about a sentence per important person or finding. Include any preliminary findings you have, and indicate what open questions are left. Restate your question in this context, showing how it fits into this larger picture. The next paragraph describes your methodology. It tells how will you approach the question, what you will need to do it. The final paragraph outlines your expected results, how you will interpret them, and how they will fit into the our larger understanding i. e. , ‘the literature'. The (Longer) Standard Model The Basic Thesis Outline Introduction Topic area Research question (finding? ) Significance to knowledge Literature review Previous research others & yours Interlocking findings and Unanswered questions Your preliminary work on the topic The remaining questions and inter-locking logic Reprise of your research question(s) in this context Methodology Approach Data needs Analytic techniques Plan for interpreting results Results Discussion and Conclusions Bibliography You get the idea of what the proposal does for you and organizing your thoughts and approach. The section below goes into slightly more (boring) detail on what each of the points in the outline is and does. The Sections of the Proposal The Introduction Topic Area A good title will clue the reader into the topic but it cannot tell the whole story. Follow the title with a strong introduction. The introduction provides a brief overview that tells a fairly well informed (but perhaps non-specialist) reader what the proposal is about. It might be as short as a single page, but it should be very clearly written, and it should let one assess whether the research is relevant to their own. With luck it will hook the reader's interest. What is your proposal about? Setting the topical area is a start but you need more, and quickly. Get specific about what your research will address. Question Once the topic is established, come right to the point. What are you doing? What specific issue or question will your work address? Very briefly (this is still the introduction) say how you will approach the work. What will we learn from your work? Significance Why is this work important? Show why this is it important to answer this question. What are the implications of doing it? How does it link to other knowledge? How does it stand to inform policy making? This should show how this project is significant to our body of knowledge. Why is it important to our understanding of the world? It should establish why I would want to read on. It should also tell me why I would want to support, or fund, the project. Literature Review State of our knowledge The purpose of the literature review is to situate your research in the context of what is already known about a topic. It need not be exhaustive; it needs to show how your work will benefit the whole. It should provide the theoretical basis for your work, show what has been done in the area by others, and set the stage for your work. In a literature review you should give the reader enough ties to the literature that they feel confident that you have found, read, and assimilated the literature in the field. It should probably move from the more general to the more focused studies, but need not be exhaustive, only relevant. Outstanding questions This is where you present the holes in the knowledge that need to be plugged and by so doing, situate your work. It is the place where you establish that your work will fit in and be significant to the discipline. This can be made easier if there is literature that comes out and says â€Å"Hey, this is a topic that needs to be treated! What is the answer to this question? † and you will sometimes see this type of piece in the literature. Research Questions in Detail Your work to date Tell what you have done so far. It might report preliminary studies that you have conducted to establish the feasibility of your research. It should give a sense that you are in a position to add to the body of knowledge. Methodology Overview of approach This section should make clear to the reader the way that you intend to approach the research question and the techniques and logic that you will use to address it. Data Collection This might include the field site description, a description of the instruments you will use, and particularly the data that you anticipate collecting. You may need to comment on site and resource accessibility in the time frame and budget that you have available, to demonstrate feasibility, but the emphasis in this section should be to fully describe specifically what data you will be using in your study. Part of the purpose of doing this is to detect flaws in the plan before they become problems in the research. Data Analysis This should explain in some detail how you will manipulate the data that you assembled to get at the information that you will use to answer your question. It will include the tools that you will use in processing the data, such as the type of interviews you will undertake, statistical software and techniques (if you’re doing a quantitative study), survey instruments, or any innovative approach you’re developing. It probably should also include an indication of the range of outcomes that you could reasonably expect from your observations. Interpretation In this section you should indicate how the anticipated outcomes will be interpreted to answer the research question. It is extremely beneficial to anticipate the range of outcomes from your analysis, and for each know what it will mean in terms of the answer to your question. Expected Results This section should give a good indication of what you expect to get out of the research. It should join the data analysis and possible outcomes to the theory and questions that you have raised. It will be a good place to summarize the significance of the work. It is often useful from the very beginning of formulating your work to write one page for this section to focus your reasoning as you build the rest of the proposal. Bibliography This is the list of the relevant works. There is no reason to cite irrelevant literature but it may be useful to keep track of it even if only to say that it was examined and found to be irrelevant. Use a standard format. Order the references alphabetically. Tips and Tricks Read. Read everything you can find in your area of interest. Read. Read. Read. Take notes, and talk to your advisor about the topic. If your advisor won't talk to you, find another one or rely on ‘the net' for intellectual interaction. Email has the advantage of forcing you to get your thoughts into written words that can be refined, edited and improved. It also gets time stamped records of when you submitted what to your advisor and how long it took to get a response. Write about the topic a lot, and don't be afraid to tear up (delete) passages that just don't work. Often you can re-think and re-type faster than than you can edit your way out of a hopeless mess. The advantage is in the re-thinking. Very early on, generate the research question, critical observation, interpretations of the possible outcomes, and the expected results. These are the core of the project and will help focus your reading and thinking. Modify them as needed as your understanding increases. Use some systematic way of recording notes and bibliographic information from the very beginning. The classic approach is a deck of index cards. You can sort, regroup, layout spatial arrangements and work on the beach. Possibly a slight improvement is to use a word-processor file that contains bibliographic reference information and notes, quotes etc. that you take from the source. This can be sorted, searched, diced and sliced in your familiar word-processor. You may even print the index cards from the word-processor if you like the ability to physically re-arrange things. Even better for some, is to use specialized bibliographic database software. Papyrus, Journler, EndNote, and other packages are available for PCs and MacIntoshs. Another pointer is to keep in mind from the outset that this project is neither the last nor the greatest thing you will do in your life. It is just one step along the way. Get it done and get on with the next one. Cover your topic, but don't confuse it with too many loosely relevant side lines. The balance between Introduction and Literature Review needs to be thought out. The reader will want to be able to figure out whether to read the proposal. The literature review should be sufficiently inclusive that the reader can tell where the bounds of knowledge lie. It should also show what has been done and what seem to be accepted approaches in the field and the kinds of results that are being gotten. Useful References: Krathwohl, David R. 1988. How to Prepare a Research Proposal: Guidelines for Funding and Dissertations in the Social and Behavioral Sciences . Syracuse University Press. Recent National Science Foundations Guidelines for Research Proposals can be found on the NSF website, www. nsf. gov. Chamberlain, T. C. â€Å"The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses†, reprinted in Science, Vol 148, pp754-759. 7 May 1965. Platt, J. â€Å"Strong Inference† in Science, Number 3642, pp. 347-353, 16 October 1964. Strunk and White The Elements of Style Turabian, Kate. 1955 (or a more recent edition) A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations, University of Chicago Press. Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. 1940 ('67, '72 etc). How to Read a Book. Simon and Schuster Publishers. New York City, NY.

Judaism, Christianity, And Islam - 1679 Words

Completely Different but Surprisingly Similar Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all three different religions that many may not think can even be compared. At a glance, the religions are derived from different locations, the members of the religions look and act different, and some of the widely known practices are what make the religions so distinct. However, they are more similar than most people think. In the core of the three religions, many of their beliefs and practices show to be extremely similar, if not the same. While they do have many similarities, there are also many differences that set these religions apart from each other which make them unique. To fully understand where these similarities and differences come from,†¦show more content†¦Judaism values prayer and have a daily routine to do so. Practicing Judaism also comes with the celebration of holidays and festivals. Some of these are Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year), Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach, and Sh avout. The entering into Judaism begins at birth when on the eighth day of life male babies are circumcised. Girls don’t have any type of circumcision but they do attend the covenant of life ceremony. Another major tradition in Judaism is the Bar/Bat Mitzvah ritual which celebrates the maturity of children when they turn 13. Judaism focuses on being close with God but they also believe that humanity is able to make moral progress. â€Å"Christianity...began life as a splinter movement within Judaism† (Brodd 351). Some members of the Jewish community believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, or Christ, which then formed the entirely separate religion of Christianity. To Christians, Jesus is the son of the virgin Mary. His conception fulfilled the prophecy and God’s promise to Abraham. Jesus’s death was for the sins of all humanity; acceptance of Jesus allows one to live an eternal life in the heavens. Christianity emphasizes that every human being s ins and that they do not have the ability to rise above sin. For this reason, they need salvation from its power over them. They rely on God’s divine grace and love to all human beings, regardless of their sins, that salvation from sin becomes possible.Show MoreRelatedJudaism, Christianity, And Islam992 Words   |  4 PagesJudaism, Christianity and Islam are three of the most recognized monotheistic religions worldwide. These religions are often referred to as the Abrahamic religions because of their history to the founding father, Abraham. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are closely related with varying differences. Christianity was born from within the Jewish tradition, and Islam developed from both Christianity and Judaism. We take a look at some of the major similarities and major differences of these widely practicedRead MoreJudaism, Christianity, and Islam1538 Words   |  6 PagesJudaism, Christianity and Islam Christianity and Islam are the most influential religions in the world. Judaism has only fourteen million followers across the continents which makes Judaism the 12th largest religion. Although Judaism is not as large as Christianity and Islam, It still has an impact on the world. Prophet Abraham is the called in Islam the father of all prophets and because of that, sometimes Christianity, Islam and Judaism are called Abrahamic Religions. There are many known differencesRead MoreJudaism, Christianity, And Islam1052 Words   |  5 PagesAubrey Fletcher 3/9/15 Humanities Professor Michaud 417868 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam There are roughly 4,200 different religions in the world today, among them the largest are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These three religions are more similar then one would think. Christianity is the largest religion in the world with 2 billion followers and are called Christians. Islam is the second largest religion in the world with 1.3 billion followers. They are called Muslims, which means â€Å"oneRead MoreJudaism, Christianity, And Islam875 Words   |  4 Pageshave believed in a higher power or powers. Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the three most dominant religions are no different. They are all Monotheistic meaning they believe in one sole higher power or God. Though they share this common idea and many other similarity, they have many distinct features of their own that make them different as a whole. Many past religions have believed in the idea of multiple gods, Polytheism. Judaism, Christianity and Islam believe in one Supreme creator, MonotheismRead MoreChristianity, Islam, And Judaism1636 Words   |  7 PagesChristianity, Islam, and Judaism All three religions believe and worship the same God but they do it in different ways. Judaism happens to be the oldest religion today but they don’t have an official creed. They aim to teach you about God, the Messiah, human beings, and the universe which makes Jewish beliefs very important to them. But it is important to understand that being Jewish is more of a race and culture than it is a religion. Some Jewish people may have no interest in Judaism. Judaism hasRead MoreChristianity, Islam, And Judaism Essay1967 Words   |  8 PagesChristianity, Islam, and Judaism represent the three most influential religions in the world throughout history. Judaism is, however, not as widespread as both Islam and Christianity, but it still has a profound impact in the world. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are also known as the Abrahamic religions because their history is traced to the ancient individual, Abraham who is first referred to in the Hebrew Bible. There are many similaritie s as well as some differences between these religionsRead MoreJudaism, Christianity, And Islam902 Words   |  4 Pagesmost famous three religions -People of the book- are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Judaism is the oldest organized religion in the world; however, it only has 14 million followers around the world most of them centered in North America and Israel. Christianity, came after Judaism and have two billion believers around the world, and that’s about one third of the world population. Finally, Islam came after Judaism and Christianity. Even though Islam came afterwards, it spread quickly around the worldRead MoreJudaism, Christianity, And Islam1016 Words   |  5 Pagesthat keeps many people going in life but at the same time, the same reason our world has so many problems and has been torn apart. Through studying the main tenets in call, Judaism, Christianity and Islam were analyzed for weeks. Christianity and Islam take the cake for the two biggest religion s in today’s population however, Judaism plays the smallest role. These three religions, although different, are easily able to be compared and contrasted because of all of the history and information we have attainedRead MoreJudaism, Christianity, And Islam1087 Words   |  5 PagesJudaism, Christianity, and Islam are among the best known and most widely practiced religions today, and have had enormous cultural, ideological, and historical impact on the peoples of every continent. Arguably more so than any other ideological systems, Abrahamic religion has been among the most influential forces in human history. The shared elements of their traditions have allowed them to develop in part through a multi-faceted dialogue with each other. These faiths, despite sharing a commonRead MoreJudaism, Christianity And Islam995 Words   |  4 Pageshistory, different cultures and religions have created ways for the mourners to cope with the tragedy of losing a loved one. In this paper , I will be comparing the advantages offered by religious traditions for the mourners, focusing on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In addition, I will be contrasting them with the benefits offered by our modern secular funeral services. To start, Judaism’s priorities are on community and on law. Therefore, Jewish traditions regarding procedures after the death of