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NUCLEAR ENERGY
Many people believe that nuclear power plants are not safe. After the attacks on the Twin Towers many people worry of another terrorist attack costing more people their lives. The fears of a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant have people worried about radiation and how it could be passed on to their children if they were exposed to radiation. The nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine had an accident that caused the power plant to blow up, because there are so many things that could go wrong in a nuclear plant extra care is put into the designs ensuring the power plant will be safe. Nuclear power plants are constructed with great concrete walls made thick concrete, easily enough to stop an airplane. Patrolled by armed personnel the building to make sure of no types of attack. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s radiation protection code (n.d.) “the storage of radioactive waste must ensure that both human health and the environment will be protected, both now and in the future, without imposing undue burdens on future generations”. The disposal place is located under ground and away from large populations. Once the radioactive material is placed in its holding storage where it has no possibility of having case leakage and has no chance becoming agitated and dangerous. The disposal of the radioactive element should not be considered dangerous to the environment because the elements will decay naturally. Although the cost of running a nuclear power plant may be considered high it is worth the money. [|Nuclear Fission]

Nuclear fission is the process of splitting atoms, or fissioning them. Fission of heavy elements is an exothermic reaction releases substantial amounts of useful energy as both gamma rays and kinetic energy of the fragments heating the bulk material where fission takes place. Nuclear fission produces energy for nuclear power of which is  cleaner than other energy sources. Energy production is largely to blame for global warming and other environmental problems. Radioactive decay, the process that nuclear power plants harnesses for energy, is a process that happens naturally. So even without human activities of converting the reaction to electricity radioactive elements would be naturally emitting energy.



Q: How can plutonium harm you?

A: You have to eat it in order to harm yourself with it. It is radioactive, naturally. Radioactive, but much less so than radium, for example, which is scattered again all over the earth's crust. So it's not a very frightening material.

Q: So how does nuclear power compare to other industries?

A: It compares very, very well. The nuclear industry is much safer than most industries. Much safer in the sense of the people that work in the plant, and much safer as far as any effect on anyone around the plant is concerned. They key event that everyone remembers is first Three Mile Island in this country, which happened in 1979, ... where television was absorbed for several days by that accident. But when you really looked at it, although it was a tragedy that the plant itself was destroyed, there were no identifiable injuries except psychological. People feared that there would be problems.

For nuclear energy to become a steady and affordable source of energy, people need to become more excepting and open to the idea of nuclear energy. Nuclear power makes no contribution to global warming through the emission of carbon dioxide. Nuclear power also produces no notable sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, or particulates. When nuclear power is produced, nothing is burned in a conventional sense. Heat is produced through nuclear fission, not oxidation. media type="youtube" key="VJfIbBDR3e8?fs=1" height="385" width="640"

www.library.thinkquest.org

Barth, R., & Spencer, J. (2005, November). Vulnerable no more. Power Engineering, 109(11). <span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">EBSCO Host.

<span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">International Atomic Energy Agency. (n. d.) IAEA radiation protection.

<span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">http://www-ns.iaea.org/standards/default.htm.

<span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Effects on Wildlife of European Expansion into North America <span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> Pontig, Clive. A Green History of the World. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.