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Nuclear Power And Nuclear Energy

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On September 26th, Doctor Robert McTaggart came in and spoke to us about nuclear energy. Nuclear energy uses the heat produced from nuclear transformations and reactions to power turbines which create energy. A majority of the time, nuclear plants run off the fission of one of three elements: Uranium 235, Uranium 233, or Plutonium 239. Something else that Dr. McTaggart said that really stuck with me was that fissile isotopes like U-235 give off more energy than is put into the system. Currently in the US, nuclear power makes up 8.3% of our country’s total energy and all of the energy produced goes towards the electric power sector, where it makes up 22% of the total amount of electric power.
Some advantages to the use of nuclear energy are that it has a carbon footprint of zero, it creates constant energy, and it has a low operating cost. With no incidents, nuclear power is very environmentally friendly, with no emissions and lots of power capacity. It is also very efficient because most of the time, the energy that is harvested out of nuclear fission is greater than the energy put in. The same thing cannot be said for any other resource, renewable or not. Once they are built, nuclear plants have a very low operating cost, making them economical after they are built.
Some disadvantages to nuclear power are waste issues, high cost of building a power plant, and terrible ramifications is safety precautions are not met. The waste issues associated with nuclear energy are not
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