The Consequences of Continued Use of Nuclear Power Plants in the USA

　　　　In the recent years, nuclear energy has gotten a comprehensive development. There are over 430 commercial nuclear power reactors operable in 31 countries, with over 370,000 MWe of total capacity. About 70 more reactors are under construction, and these numbers are still rising up (World Nuclear

Presently, nuclear fusion and nuclear fission are being studied, and even used in some countries as a power generator. The enormous energy produced by nuclear fission and fusion could light up a big city for a hundred years or more and we do not have to worry about it polluting our environment because nuclear energy is a green energy. Moreover, in a long term, the cost to generate power using nuclear is far less than the cost of generating power using fossil fuel.

Nuclear energy is gathered by the process of splitting uranium atoms. By splitting these atoms, there is some mass loss, and this mass can then be used as energy. This process is called fission. The heat from this fission is used to turn water into steam, and this steam turns the turbine generator in a reactor, which produces energy. Nuclear power plants have many advantages when compared to other renewable energy sources.

Nuclear energy is the energy that is released during nuclear fission or fusion also called a nuclear reaction. It is used to generate electricity energy is produced when a nucleus absorbs a neutron and splits into two lighter nuclei. The atoms consist of an electron cloud and a nucleus. (nuclearinfo.net)

America’s nuclear energy plants are — by a wide margin — the nation’s largest source of carbon-free power. They produce clean, reliable electricity as well as well-paying jobs. Although several dependable nuclear plants have closed in recent years for economic reasons, nuclear energy is getting a fresh look for its ability to produce vast amounts of power without emitting greenhouse gases. And with new reactor designs, both big and small, scientists and technologists are re-engineering the future of nuclear energy for everyone’s benefit.

On Wednesday, March 28, 1979, around 4 a.m., there was a failure in the water pumps at the Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pennsylvania. This led to a partial meltdown of a nuclear power plant. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), the Department of Energy, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania all conducted particular studies of the radiological consequences of the accident. Approximately two million people were estimated to have received an average of one millirem of radiation, and there was a maximum dose to a person who was at the site of 100 millirem (“Backgrounder”). To put this into perspective, an exposure from a single chest X-ray is two to six millirem (“Doses”). However, this put fear into the minds of politicians and others all across the country. What the people do not know, though, is nuclear is better. Instead of using fossil-fuels and wind power, America ought to switch to nuclear energy to power the country because it is safer, cleaner, less expensive, and more reliable than the current ways of producing energy

The origins of nuclear power, in fact, should be enough to give one pause; fission reactions (albeit uncontrolled ones) were originally intended to be used as weapons: the weapon, of course, being the atomic bomb. The nuclear program began in earnest when Einstein himself, afraid that Hitler had a team working on such a weapon, wrote to President Roosevelt to inform him that such a weapon might be possible to build (Shrader-Frechette 7). The development of the A-bomb by the Manhattan Project, its use in Japan and the effect on World War II are all well-documented. (After the initial test at Alamagordo, New Mexico, one of the bomb’s major developers, J. Robert Oppenheimer, was rumored to whisper: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” when he saw the level of destruction his new creation had achieved.) Less well known are the recommendations made by a panel of Manhattan Project scientists about the post-war uses of nuclear energy. The panel’s report concluded, “The development of fission piles solely for the production of power for ordinary commercial use does not appear economically sound nor advisable from the point of view of preserving natural resources”; in other words, the first panel of experts on commercial nuclear energy and its resources felt uranium was too expensive to waste on

1b/process. “How do we harvest this lost energy,” you might be wondering? Well, nuclear energy receives its power from the fission, or splitting, of atoms in very dense radioactive metals. Once one atom is split, the halves separate into 2 or more less dense atoms, and remaining neutrons can be shot out at high velocities. If these neutrons slam into another atom and are captured by it, that atom has a chance that it too will undergo fission. This cycle of splitting atoms is a chain reaction. Nuclear fission requires power to start the chain reaction, and it needs a certain amount of Uranium, called a critical mass, before this chain reaction can support itself and create excess energy. This excess energy is released as heat, usually into water. This changes the water into steam and is used to turn turbines to produce electricity. According to an article written by the U.S. Dept. of Energy, the first successful attempt at a self-sustaining nuclear reactor was on December 2nd, 1942.

Throughout history, the source of energy that powers the world has advanced alongside technology. The power on which civilization thrives has to be in accordance to the demand at which it is required. As technology evolves, objects from which energy can be extracted can expanded exponentially. In the status quo, the United States is trying to limit the greenhouse gas emissions instead of just switching power sources which is the wrong direction they should be going in. [Thesis] Instead of wasting their time and money investing in burning coal as their main source of power, countries and their governments need to assist in the transition to a more cost effective and efficient form of energy in the form of nuclear energy.

Nuclear power produces huge amount of energy through nuclear fission. 1 ton of uranium fuel, which is used as a fuel in generating electricity, equals to 50,000 tons of fossil fuels for generating the same amount of electricity. Since a small amount of nuclear fuel can produce a large amount of energy, it is powerful and efficient.

Nuclear power was the world’s fastest growing form of energy in the 1990’s. However, presently it is the second slowest growing worldwide. Considering that nuclear power accounts for eleven percent of the world’s energy supply, one must ask what happened [Nuclear Power]. Why is it that the growth of nuclear power has almost completely stalled? The simple answer is that after meltdowns such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, many people are afraid of nuclear power plants, which causes great opposition to the expansion of the industry. Unfortunately, most people are not well informed about nuclear energy; many do not take the time to view its positives and negatives.

The disastrous meltdowns that cause whole cities to become uninhabitable, as well as leaving families homeless and laborers without jobs, have defined the negative perspective of what people see in nuclear power. However, even after such catastrophes, the pure raw energy output makes nuclear power essential for the future of the human race. As time passes, the world’s energy usage has grown an increasingly massive size every year due to the consumption swell of energy. Despite nuclear plants being a heavily controversial topic internationally, its advantages are very well recognized and it’s causing nuclear plants to slowly become the basis of our growing society.

As a result, numerous countries are creating more nuclear power plants. From the 1990s, the rate of nuclear power plants constructed increased because of technological and managerial, deregulation, and safety improvements.

The world's natural resources are being consumed at an alarming rate. As these resources diminish, people will be seeking alternative sources by which to generate electricity for heat and light. The only practical short-term solution for the energy/pollution crisis should be nuclear power because it is available, cleaner and safer.

Nuclear energy has been around longer than people think. In 1934 Physicist Enrico Fermi experiments in Rome showing that Neutrons can split many kind s of atoms. In 1946 the Atomic Energy Commission was created to explore peaceful uses of energy and nuclear energy development. In 1951 an experimental Breeder reactor produced the first electric power from nuclear energy in