In 2014 Coal was responsible for roughly about 40% of electricity generated in United States.  It is cheap and effective. U.S also has huge reserves of coal available. While Coal is good way to generate electricity it also has a downside. Coal is main source of air pollution for past few centuries. It emits unspeakable amount of CO2. Which results in climate changes. The temperature is gradually increasing causing damage to plants and wildlife.

Nuclear power is another source of electricity and it generated around 20% of total electricity in united states in 2014. In this case nuclear fusion is used to generate heat which is then used to fire up steam turbines and generate electricity. unlike Coal Nuclear energy has no CO2 emission at all. But it creates radioactive waste that needs to be carefully put away. With the latest Nuclear power plants the amount of radioactive waste is drastically reduced but it still is big threat if treated carelessly.  It costs a lot initially to build good nuclear power plant and the pay all the personnel but nuclear power offers very low fuel cost and meanwhile produces a lot of energy.  Uranium used in process is available in earth crust and can be easily mined.  Nuclear power plants are extremely reliable unless something causes them to malfunction. People seem to have innate fear of nuclear “things” but it really is safe. While talking about threats I want to mention that one of the biggest potential threat for nuclear power plant is terrorism and natural disaster. both of them present threat of power plant meltdown.