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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 Facts about Voyager 1

Image
10 Facts about Voyager 1: 1. Voyager 1 Has Been Traveling for 35 Years Launched in 1977, September 5 will mark the 36th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch. That makes it one of the oldest pieces of space technology that is still in contact with Earth. 2. V1 Has Traversed Over 11 BILLION Miles To put this number in perspective, 11 billion miles is the equivalent of circling the Earth 440,000 times. And yet, in terms of light-years, the unit to measure space that is marked by how far light can travel in a year, V1 hasn't even left the neighbourhood. It will take 40,000 years for V1 to reach only two light-years distance from the sun. As large as 11 billion is, space is infinitely bigger. 3. V1 is Traveling At 39,000 mph This speed makes it the fastest space technology we have right now. Even spacecraft that have been launched years later with better technology is slower than V1. 4. It Was Originally Only Supposed to Survey Jupiter The original intention of V1 a
Read more

10 Facts about Shakira

Image
10 Facts about  Shakira : 1. Her full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll. 2. She's fluent in Portuguese, Italian, English, Spanish and Arabic. 3. She was granted Humanitarian award on April 3, 2006, for starting a charitable foundation, Barefoot, to help children in her native Colombia escape violence. 4. Shakira is a smarty-pants with an IQ of 140. The average is 100. 5. Shakira was invited to The White House by President Obama in 2010 to discuss early childhood development and in 2011 was appointed as a member of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. 6. Her father is a Lebanese, while her mother is a Spanish-Italian. Her father's name is William Mebarak Chadid and mother's name is Nidia del Carmen Ripoll. 7. Shakira is the second most 'liked' celebrity on Facebook, she has over 100 million likes and is called the Queen of Facebook. 8. She recorded her very first album when she was only 13.
Read more

10 Facts about Adolf Hitler

Image
10 Facts about Adolf Hitler 1. Hitler spied on the Nazi Party before joining them. Then he realized that he shared the same anti-Semitic, nationalist and anti-Marxist views as the leader Anton Drexler and joined the Party, becoming their 55th member. 2. During his teens, Hitler dreamed of being an artist and was twice rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts (in both 1907 and 1908) due to “his unfitness for painting”. 3. Adolf Shicklgruber was his real name. 4. The vast m ajority of the 11million people killed during the Holocaust were murdered at the 1,200 Death and Concentration Camps established by the Nazis – yet Hitler never set foot in one of them. 5. Hitler was TIME Magazine’s Man Of The Year for 1938 6. Hitler wanted to become a priest when he was young. 7. He helped to implement laws which protected wild animals, chickens and cattle – and he intended to reduce Germany’s meat consumption after World War II. 8. Despite his attempt “to rid
Read more