| Nuclear power poses a major threat to the environment and to humanity. Most of the time it has proven to be safe and successful, but on some occasions its results have been disastrous. The production of nuclear power is accompanied by the production of radioactivity. Like the pollution produced when fossil fuels are burned, radioactivity can be very dangerous to living creatures. This is especially true in the case of nuclear accidents, which have occurred infrequently throughout recent history.
In 1957, the core of a nuclear reactor at Windscale, England, caught fire. Soon, radioactivity spread throughout Britain. Official statistics on how many people died from radioactivity poisoning were never compiled. In that same year, an explosion occurred in the Soviet Union at Kyshytym. The surrounding area was heavily contaminated and 270,000 people had to be evacuated. As many as 10,000 people died. A reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, USA, partially melted down at its core in 1979. No huge amount of radioactive material was released, and a major disaster was averted. However, it cost over US $1 billion to repair the plant.Probably the greatest nuclear power disaster in history occurred in 1986 in Chernobyl
in the Ukraine. The explosion released a cloud of radioactivity that spread throughout Europe and into Scandinavia.Huge numbers of animals had to be slaughtered and food had to be destroyed because it had been contaminated by radioactive material. In total, 21,000 Western Europeans are expected to get cancer from exposure to radioactivity let off by the explosion, and 100,000 Soviets were likely affected.
In addition to nuclear power disasters, there is also the problem of nuclear waste, which can cause health problems. US storage facilities in Hanford released 422,000 gallons of radioactive material from 1945 to 1973. In 1968, a British nuclear plant put 180 kilograms of plutonium into the Irish Sea. A virtual tour of a nuclear power plantInformation on nuclear powerJava nuclear plant simulation |
