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Nuclear Power

In 1905, Einstein discovered that mass could be changed into energy and vice versa. In 1918, Sir Ernest Rutherford showed that atoms could be split. By 1942, the world had its first nuclear reactor.gToday, 104 nuclear plants supply about 20% of the United State’s electricity. The oldest plants have been operating since before 1979. There have been no new sites built since the Three Mile Island disaster (1979).aWhile nuclear power plants themselves do not create carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or nitrogen oxides, the mining, enrichment, and transportation of uranium generates harmful fossil fuel byproducts.dFossil fuels supply about 90% of the world’s electricity. These fuels emit dangerous gasses such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide, which create acid rain and may contribute to global warming. Nuclear energy does not directly add harmful gases to the atmosphere, but nuclear plants are expensive to build and create radioactive materials.hGlobally, there are over 430 commercial nuclear power reactors in 31 countries.iThere have been three major nuclear power plant disasters: the Chernobyl disaster (1986), the Three Mile Island accident (1979), and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011).bThe world’s first nuclear power plant to create electricity for a power grid was USSR’s Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, which opened on June 27, 1954.dIn the United States, the first commercial nuclear generator was the Shippingport Reactor in Pennsylvania, which opened in 1957.aContaminated food was still sold after the Chernobyl disasterContaminated food was still sold in the Ukraine after the Chernobyl accident. One worker described the conditions after the accident: “Contaminated meat would come into the factory. The internal organs of the cattle would be black and rotten, but still the meat was sold.”fIn the United States, radioactivity is often measured in rems. However, most countries currently use the sievert (Sv) to measure radioactivity. One sievert is equal to 100 rems. The nuclear waste from an entire reactor gives off about 10,000 rems per hour, even 10 years after it was first used in a nuclear plant. A human who is exposed to 500 rems at one time will die.dCurrently, nuclear waste in the United States is stored in cooling pools of water and in dry storage casks at nuclear power plants. The United States government, however, hopes to bury its waste deep underground at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Nevadans and surrounding states have protested this proposal.eThe U.S.S. Nautilus was the first nuclear-powered submarine and was put to sea in December 1954. Named after the submarine in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, she was the first vessel to travel submerged under the North Pole, on August 3, 1958. She was decommissioned in 1980 and has been preserved as a National Historic Landmark.aThe United States has 71,862 tons of nuclear waste. Waste can stay dangerous for tens of thousands of years. The industry’s nuclear pile of waste is growing about 2,200 tons a year. Some waste sites contain four times the amount of spent fuel they were designed to handle.eWaste from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident is stored in Idaho, even though Idaho has never had a commercial reactor. Illinois has the most spent nuclear fuel of any other state in the U.S. at 9,301 tons. It is followed by Pennsylvania (6,446 tons), South Carolina (4,290), and New York and North Carolina (3,780 tons each).aAn estimated 3 million Americans live within 10 miles of a functional nuclear power plant.bNuclear power plants use nuclear fission, or the process of splitting an atom into two. Nuclear fusion (the process of combining atoms into one) is thought to be safer; however, nuclear fusion technology has not yet been developed on a wide scale.hA nuclear power plant must shut down every 18-24 months to remove its used uranium fuel, or radioactive waste.hThe first disastrous impact from nuclear energy occurred in August 1945 when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over 250,000 people, mostly civilians, died from the denotations.fSouth Africa developed complete nuclear weapons in the 1980s. However, it became the first country in the world to voluntarily destroy their weapon supply and to stop producing more weapons.cThe USSR tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan on August 29, 1949. The Russians were able to develop their own nuclear capabilities so soon after the United States did due to extensive nuclear espionage at Los Alamos, California, mainly by Klaus Fuchs (1911-1988).aThe peace symbol was originally an anti-nuclear emblemThe peace symbol was initially an anti-nuclear weapons symbol.bSome scientist estimate that a person receives five times as much radiation in a lifetime from sitting in front of the TV or computer as he or she would from living by a nuclear power station.fThe Sun produces an enormous amount of energy from its nuclear reactions that change hydrogen into helium. In the process, the Sun loses over 4 million tons of mass—every second.hA team from the Manhattan Project led by Enrico Fermi created the first self-sustaining or crucial nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago on December 2, 1942.dThe first nuclear weapon in the world was detonated as a test by the United States at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945. Considered the beginning of the Atomic Age, the denotation took place in New Mexico. The fireball was about 600 feet wide and generated power roughly equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. The test director commented after the explosion that: “Now we are all sons of bitches.”aThe most recent nuclear test was done by North Korea on May 25, 2009.cThe United States primarily used the Nevada Test Site and the Marshall Islands (Pacific Proving Grounds) to test their atomic and nuclear weapons.fThe most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States (at 25 megatons) was Castle Bravo at the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954. It was also the largest accidental radiological contamination caused by the U.S. It was about 1,000 times more powerful than each of the atomic bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. Castle Bravo was the fifth largest nuclear explosion in the world.cThe most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated was Russia’s Tsar Bomba. It is also the single most physically powerful device ever created by man. The fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plan and was seen 620 miles from ground zero. The mushroom cloud was over 40 miles high and the base of the cloud was 25 miles wide. It was test-denotated on October 30, 1961, in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.cThe four types of nuclear testing including atmospheric, underwater, exoatmospheric, and undergroundFrom 1945 to 1980, over 500 nuclear weapons were tested in the atmosphere around the world. The CDC estimates that nuclear fallout from these tests caused over 11,000 excess deaths, mainly caused by thyroid cancer.cGovernment regulators in the U.S estimate that there is a 50% chance of a core meltdown in a U.S. reactor within a 20-year period.bThe CIA has noted that chronic India-Pakistan conflict is a “flash point,” or a conflict most likely to lead to nuclear war. A second conflict would be the between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China over Taiwan.cJ. Robert Oppenheimer, along with Enrico Fermi, is considered the “father of the atomic bomb.” After the Trinity test in the United States in 1945, Oppenheimer quoted a line from theBhagavad Gita: “Now, I am become death, the destroyer of the world.”bSome researchers have argued that even a limited nuclear war (a small-scale use of nuclear weapons) would lead to a “global holocaust in slow motion” because once even a small nuclear war started, other nations would follow over decades, resulting in a “full-scale nuclear war.”fJust removing a person’s outer clothing can remove 90% of the radioactive material after a disaster.fAfter Japan’s nuclear disaster in 2011, several countries have rethought the use of nuclear energy. For example, Germany plans to close all of its reactors by 2022. Italy and Switzerland have halted expanding their nuclear power. However, some big markets, such as China and India, are still pushing ahead with new nuclear plants.eBefore Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, the International Energy Agency predicted that nuclear plants would add 360 gigawatts of generating capacity by 2035. After Fukushima, the IEA halved those estimates.eShearon Harris is considered a highly vulnerable terrorist targetThe largest radioactive waste storage pool in the U.S. is in North Carolina at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant. The department of Homeland Security had marked Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation.eRandall Thompson, a health physics technician who monitored the Three Mile Island disaster, claims that what happened there was “a whole lot worse than what has been reported [. . .] hundreds of times worse.” He claims that radiation leaks from the plant were hundreds if not thousands of times higher than the government or industry ever acknowledged.fA nuclear war would kill approximately 1 billion people, and hundreds of millions would be injured. The 3-4 billion people left alive would find themselves facing widespread radioactive contamination, a possible nuclear winter, increased levels of damaging ultraviolet rays due to partial destruction of the ozone layer, a global photochemical smog, as well as a multitude of toxic pollutants.fBetween 1945 and 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out globally. Between 1945 and 1992, the U.S. held over 1,032 tests. Between 1949 and 1990, the Soviet Union carried out 715 tests. Additionally, between 1952 and 1991, the UK carried out 45 tests. France carried out 210 tests between 1960 and 1996. China carried out 45 tests between 1964 and 1996.fOf the 2,000 nuclear explosions detonated over the world between 1954 and 1996, 25% (over 500 bombs) were detonated in the atmosphere. The majority has been detonated underground. In fact, 75% of all nuclear tests during the Cold War were detonated underground.cWhen the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, Joe 1, on August 29, 1949, it marked the beginning of the Cold War nuclear arms race between the U.S and the Soviet Union. The United Kingdom was the third country to test nuclear weapons, on October 3, 1952.cBetween 1955 and 1989, the average number of nuclear tests every year was 55.cPhysicists Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein drafted a letter (the Einstein-Szilard letter) to President Franklin Roosevelt warning the United States that Nazi Germany had begun a nuclear weapons research project. The letter led to fission research in the United States and spawned the Manhattan Project.gThe average cost of building one new reactor for a new plant in the United States is between $6 and $8 billion.aThe Chernobyl disaster released a hundred times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in WWII. The environmental group Greenpeace says its research shows that the death toll will be near 100,000.aThe first nuclear-powered surface vessel was the Russian icebreaker Lenin. The largest nuclear powered surface ship is the 1,122-foot-long USS Enterprise, which was launched in 1960. It is the longest naval vessel in the world and has eight reactors driving four propellers. It is still active.gOne of NASA’s programs, called Project Prometheus, is investigating nuclear power as the primary power source for long-distance spacecraft. Increased speeds could cut a journey to Mars by two thirds.aNuclear medicine uses radioactive isotopes (or radioisotopes) to study, diagnose, and treat diseases. Additionally, radiotherapy is used to treat many medical conditions, especially cancer, by using radiation to destroy targeted cells.aThe Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant in Tokyo is the largest nuclear plant in the world. In 2007, it was shut down temporarily after its safety systems failed during an earthquake.hRadiation in high doses can cause very serious illness or death. Symptoms include sever headaches, vomiting, and internal bleeding. A victim’s hair may fall out and their skin may develop blisters and sores. Some victims of radiation sickness also need to have their limbs amputated. Lower doses of radiation can have long-lasting effects, such as increased likelihood of developing tumors and cancer that may not show up for 30 years or more.fUranium is a source of today’s nuclear fuel. During the Middle Ages, craftspeople used it to color glass yellow or certain shades of green.fIt took 14 years and $975 million to clean up after Three Mile Island disaster.bThe fallout from Chernobyl set off alarms at a Swedish nuclear plant 700 miles away. A radioactive cloud reached countries from Turkey to Ireland.b Top Uranium Producers in the World (2006) hCountryPercentCanada25.0%Australia19.3%Kazakhstan13.4%Niger8.7%Russia8.3%Namibia7.8%Uzbekistan5.7%United States4.2%Ukraine2.0%China1.9%Total96.3%Number of Nuclear Warheads (2007) hCountryNumberRussia16,000United States10,300China410France350United Kingdom200Israel100-170India75-119Pakistan50-110Total27,485–27,650Nuclear Timeline a1939Einstein, Szilard, and other scientists draft a letter to the president warning about Nazi plans to develop nuclear weapons.June 1941Roosevelt creates the Office of Scientific Research and Development.June 1942The Manhattan Project begins.July 1945The test bomb, Trinity, is detonated.August 1945The United States bombs Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrenders in WW II.1946-1991The Soviet Union and the United States engage in the Cold War.November 1952The United States tests the first thermonuclear bomb.August 1953The Soviet Union detonates its first hydrogen bomb.December 1953Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace” speech before the United Nations.March 1954The Soviet Union opens its first plant to generate electricity from nuclear power.1955The USS Nautalis becomes the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine.July 1957The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.October 1962The Cuban Missile Crisis brings the Cold War closest to the American shore.March 1970The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty goes into effect.January 1975The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is formed.March 28, 1979A reactor core at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant partially melts down.April 25, 1986Chernobyl melts down.March 2011Fukushima melts down.-- Posted August 31, 2012Referencesa Benoit, Peter. 2012. Nuclear Age. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.b ----. 2011. Nuclear Meltdowns. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.c “Ending Nuclear Testing.” The United Nations. 2011. Accessed: July 22, 2012.d Ferguson, Charles D. 2011. Nuclear Energy: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.e Galbraith, Kate. “A New Urgency to the Problem of Storing Nuclear Waste.” The New York Times. November 27, 2011. Accessed: July 22, 2012.f Johnston, Barbara Rose and Holly M. Barker. 2008. TheConsequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc.g Juettner, Bonnie. 2007. Nuclear Power. New York, NY: Thompson Gale.h Morris, Neil. 2010. Nuclear Power. Mankato, MN: Smart Apple Media.i “Nuclear Power in the World Today.” World Nuclear Association. Updated April 2012. Accessed: July 22, 2012.What is Nuclear Energy?Nuclear energy originates from the splitting of uranium atoms in a process called fission. At the power plant, the fission process is used to generate heat for producing steam, which is used by a turbine to generate electricity.

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Facts About Nuclear Energy