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Nuclear Power |
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Background Nuclear power is split in to power from nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. However the current staple of power derived from nuclear energy is through nuclear fission; although nuclear fusion produces much more and cleaner energy than nuclear fission it is, currently, merely experimental and all reactors cannot extract enough energy from the reaction to even break even with the amount of energy put in to start the reaction, nevertheless it is still a prospective source of energy. |
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The Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, a fission reactor in Luzenne County, Pennsylvania, USA (above). Photo courtesy of the United States of America Federal Government |
Introduction Due to the increased demand for electricity from the world’s population as a result of urbanization, more and more power plants in each country are being built; however the majority of them being built are fossil fuel fired power plants, and the majority of these power plants are coal fired, these plants account for 93% of the carbon emissions of the electric utility sector; this sector are responsible for 40% of the carbon emission of the country with largest carbon dioxide emissions, the United States of America. Therefore carbon emissions are a major factor of global warming, but there is a source of energy for electricity that does not produce carbon dioxide as a waste product, nuclear power, which shall be the focus of this article.
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Nuclear fission Nuclear fission is the natural phenomenon of which heavy atoms, such as Uranium, with neutrons to induce the unstable nucleus of the atom to split into roughly equally sized atoms whose sum of atomic masses are slightly less than the original atom; a result explained by Einstein’s E=mc2 equation, the missing weight being converted to massive amounts of energy. Nuclear fission is used in atom bombs and in power generation, this is possible due to the fact that some of these heavy atoms, notably U-235, release free neutrons upon fission thus allowing a chain reaction to take place and generate sustained power. |
Uranium-235 a type of radioactive element used in fission reactors(above). Photo courtesy of the United States of America Federal Government |
| made of Cadmium-48. The fission reactor utilizes the generated heat from the reaction to boil a large tank of water which will evaporate into steam and drive a turbine that will generate electricity. However, byproducts of the reaction are highly radioactive and remain that way for many years, thus lowering its attractiveness as an efficient source of power generation. |
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Design of the HiPER experimental fusion reactor(above). Photo courtesy of CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK |
Nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is the exact opposite of nuclear fission, it involves the fusing of atoms instead of splitting them to generate energy; used in the reaction are mostly light atoms like hydrogen and lithium. A prime example of a nuclear fusion reactor is our Sun. Unlike fission, nuclear fusion is much harder to achieve, as it requires a very high temperature to be reached in order to happen. While fission has been mastered sufficiently to be able to put into use generating electricity, fusion is far from it though it has been achieved experimentally (by far the most successful being the Joint European Torus Reactor, producing a peak of 16MW of power). |
fission reactors and without the added radioactive byproducts. Currently, the main research project is the ITER which is under construction, scheduled to be completed in 2016 and is projected to be able to produce 500MW in a duration of 400 seconds; it will pave the way for commercial nuclear fusion reactors. Analysis Nuclear power remains an attractive alternative to fossil fuels for production of electricity due to its enormous capacity, despite the dangers of core meltdowns and the ensuing human and environmental devastation that were brought to public attention by the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl(full) incidents, case in point is France whom is producing close to 80% of her electricity through nuclear power. This is, in fact, mostly due to the tremendous amount of energy produced from an extremely small mass and produces little pollutants other than highly radioactive byproducts in a conventional nuclear fission reactor; a common statement used to describe the amount of energy produced is that 1 kilo of uranium can produce as much power as 1500 tons of coal. However, nuclear fission produces radioactive byproducts after the uranium fuel is spent which lessens its appeal as a form of green energy as radioactive byproducts are considered to be a environmental problem and hazard. Secure storage areas would have to be created for the proper disposal of the radioactive byproducts, as they have extremely long half-lives, ranging from days to hundreds of thousands of years. This makes it very hazardous if the waste is improperly disposed of, potentially causing long-term radiation effects to nearby residents; though nuclear fusion is able to get around the problem of radioactive byproducts, its long wait to 2050 for the first commercial reactor, assuming that everything is going as smoothly as possible, will not help what is in sight. Though it could be a prospective form of energy in the future, the technology involved is still in its infancy and science would have to progress to the level where we can have a good track record for the safety and reliability of nuclear fusion for it to become a possibility in terms of alternatives to the usage of fossil fuels in the efforts to curb environmental degradation and climate change and the time it takes to fully develop the technology just will not cut it, the problem at hand is just too urgent to be solved with a solution way into the future. |
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