10 Facts about Nuclear Energy

10 Facts about Nuclear Energy

1. Nuclear energy comes from uranium, a nonrenewable resource that must be mined.

2. Every 18 to 24 months, a power plant must shut down to remove its spent uranium fuel, which becomes radioactive waste.

3. 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.

4. Today, 104 nuclear plants supply about 20% of the United State’s electricity. The oldest plants have been operating since before 1979.

5. Contaminated food was still sold in the Ukraine after the Chernobyl accident. One worker described the conditions after the accident: “Contaminated meat would come from the factory. The internal organs of the cattle would be black and rotten, but still, the meat was sold."

6. Currently, 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.

7. South 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.

8. The 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.

9. Nuclear 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.

10. Radiation in high doses can cause very serious illness or death. Symptoms include severing 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 tumours and cancer that may not show up for 30 years or more.