argument108 寄托4人组 8.28 作业

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Argument108: 394 words   30 minutes
The following appeared in a Brenton newspaper.
'The Brenton power plant draws water from Scott's River for its cooling system and releases the warmed water back into the river. The town council recommends that the plant install a more efficient cooling system that uses less water, claiming it will be more environmentally sound. However, in Uptown, where the new system is used, a study found that the complex network of pipes in the new system tends to accumulate algae. The build up of algae can be avoided by scrubbing the pipes, which is costly, or by adding an herbicide to the water in the pipes to prevent algae accumulation. But water containing the herbicide cannot be released back into the river and it is known that low water levels can harm river ecosystems accustomed to higher levels. Therefore, Brenton power plant should continue to use the old cooling system exclusively.'

In this argument, the author tries to convince us that Brenton power plant should continue to use the old cooling system exclusively, since using a new one will lead to damage of ecosystem of Scott's River. I will argue, however, a careful examination will reveal several critical flaws that undermine its reasoning.

To begin with, the author fails to prove that the new cooling system used in uptown is not successful. First, although the pipes in the new system tend to accumulate algae, whether this phenomenon is harmful is not clear. Maybe the accumulating algae have no significant influence on the cooling system. Second, even granted that they are harmful, and that scrubbing the pipes is costly, it does not follow that the new system will be more costly than the old one as a whole. Maybe the system is so efficient that it can save much more energy, and therefore although the cost of maintaining is higher than the old one, the total cost is much lower. Third, even if the cost is unacceptable and adding an herbicide is the only way to solve the algae problem, there might be some method to control the river pollution caused by the herbicide. It is possible, for example, the plant can add another cheap chemical to neutralize the herbicide before releasing the water into the river, thus the environmental worry is unnecessary.   

Moreover, even granted the new cooling system does not work well in Uptown, it does not imply that it will not work at Brenton power plant, for there might be huge differences between these two spots. It is highly possible that the river near Brenton contains some chemicals that will prevent the growth of algae, therefore Brenton do not have to bother about the algae problem.

Besides, even if the same water pollution will happen at Brenton, it still might be a better choice to replace the old one. We do not know the current environment near Brenton. Perhaps the old cooling system has more serious pollutions than the herbicides will cause. For instance, perhaps the more water consuming is much more harmful to the ecosystem; perhaps the old system is generating heavy air pollution and solid pollution. So replacing the old system by the new one might be very helpful to reduce the pollution.

(In addition, even granted that to avoid the environmental problem, the new system will be much more costly than the old one, there might be better ways than using the old system exclusively. Maybe, we can imagine, Brenton can use the new one and old one alternatively, in which way the cost will not be too high, and the environment is well protected.)

In sum, the argument is not very persuasive as it stands. The