What is Nuclear Energy ?

Project Prometheus is the NASA initiative to use nuclear power for long distance space exploration. The use of nuclear power as a primary fuel source could increase speeds and cut costs of missions.

The US was the second global power to allow for commercial reactors to produce electricity. The Shippingport Power Plant came online in 1957.

Nuclear medicine is used to diagnose and treat many different diseases. It uses isotopes to explore the body. Another version of it is radiotherapy, which is used to treat certain cancers by using radiation to target and destroy cancer cells.

The US government is attempting to switch from storing nuclear waste in cooling ponds and surface casks by burying it underground in a special site on Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The federal government is facing local state opposition to this plan.

Uranium isn’t new. While using it as a source of power is new, during the middle ages it was used to transform the color of glass.

The US was the first global power to use a nuclear powered submarine. The USS Nautilus was launched in 1954. It was the first submerged vessel to travel under the North Pole and remained in service until 1980,

The 104 nuclear power plants in the US are neighbors to over 3 million people, all who live within 10 miles of them.

options of energy generation we have ever adopted. A few tragic accidents with effects lasting until the present day occurred in recent history. Perhaps the scariest one with losses of lives, the explosion of reactor in Chernobyl in 1986, is the best example of severe consequences of radioactivity on living organisms. Besides 30 men who died directly after the accident, the health of over 1 million of people was affected by radiation.

Nuclear fusion is the safest way to create power. It involves putting two atoms together to make one. The technology has never been implemented on a broad scale, so almost all nuclear power plants use nuclear fission – which splits one atom into two, and is considered more dangerous.

France produces so much electricity through nuclear power that it exports the surplus to other countries. France supplies 72% of country’s electricity from nuclear power and exports the surplus to Italy, UK, Spain, Switzerland, and Belgium.

Every year and a half to two years, every nuclear plant goes through a cleaning cycle that shuts down the plant to allow for the removal of radioactive waste.

The first developed country to follow through on the agreements to destroy nuclear weapon stockpiles and cease production of nuclear weapons was South Africa. A newcomer to nuclear warfare, they had only developed nuclear weapons in the late 80s.

The former Soviet Union was “helped” by the US to create their first nuclear weapons. A successful spy venture stole them the information they needed to complete their program from the Los Alamo laboratories in the US that created nuclear weaponry.

While concern about exposure to radiation is valid, some research shows that you will get more radiation over your lifetime from being around personal electronics than from being near a nuclear power plant.

Nuclear energy produces approximately 20% of the electricity used by the United States. In 2016, the U.S. nuclear power plants generated over 800 billion kWh of electricity, which is twice as much as France has produced , but the U.S. also wastes 25-40% of all electricity that is produced by the inefficient usage.

The largest nuclear reactor is actually the Sun. It uses nuclear reactions, a natural process, to convert hydrogen to helium.

The production of electricity using nuclear energy emits comparable amounts of greenhouse gases as wind, water or biomass energy. Solar releases three times more greenhouse gas emissions than nuclear energy. This makes nuclear energy more climate friendly than fossil fuel energy. Just for comparison, coal releases 30 times more greenhouse gases than nuclear .

The Manhattan Project, a research team based in Chicago in 1942, produced the first functioning nuclear reactor design.

The US tests their nuclear weapons in Nevada and in the Pacific Proving Grounds. The Proving Grounds cover the Marshall Islands.

Tsar Bomba, from the former Soviet Union, remains the most powerful nuclear device ever created. It was tested in 1961 over Novaya Zemlya. And the mushroom cloud it produced could be seen clearly from over 600 miles away.

There are 4 different tests used in developing a nuclear weapon. They are the atmospheric and underwater test, as well as the exoatmospheric and underground tests.

The US has concerns about two points in ongoing world crises that have the potential to lead to a nuclear war. The first is featured in the conflict between India and Pakistan; the second is the conflict over China and Taiwan, which would also involve the US.

In the event of a disaster, should you be exposed to nuclear material – remove all of your clothes. This will also remove almost 90% of the radioactive material you were just exposed too.

The event at Fukushima in 2011 led to many countries stopping plans for increased nuclear power plants, while others are staying on track. It should be noted that growing countries, such as China and India, are still pursuing nuclear power.

The event at Fukushima also caused a downgrade and the predicted amount of energy that nuclear plants would provide to the global economy. This has led to concerns over what could be used to fill the gap in need by 2035