Frederick Soddy (1877-1956)

H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

Leo Szilard (1898-1964)



NUCLEAR POWER

Currently there are around 30 nations with about 440 nuclear power plants operating, and 15 nations have about 70 new nuclear power plants under construction. For up to date statistics, click here. Only about 20 of the existing reactors are “fast reactors” which can operate as “breeders.” In the US there are nearly 100 operating reactors producing electricity.


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Enrico Fermi created the first man-made chain reaction in December of 1942 in a squash court under the abandoned football stadium of the University of Chicago, but a natural chain reaction was produced in Gabon, West Africa about 1.7 billion years ago, when a large deposit of natural uranium was flooded, and ran for several hundred thousand years, producing an average of 0.1 million Watts of thermal power!


Despite overwhelming publicity concerning rare accidents, the safety record of existing plants is extremely impressive.
What radiation exposure is there from nuclear power in the US? In terms of mSv, the average US citizen gets about 5 x 10-5 of his 3 mSv per year from nuclear power!!




Fission products have a large neutron excess and so many decays are required before the fission fragments convert into stable nuclei.


It takes roughly 1000 years for the level of activity of the spent fuel elements to fall to a level comparable to natural ores. [The unit is Tera-Becquerels; that is, 1012 Becquerels.]

Admiral Hyman Rickover (January 27, 1900 – July 8, 1986)

The only first-world countries in which there is current significant construction of nuclear power plants: France, Russia, Japan and China. The situation with Japan is complicated by a recent, highly publicized accident. Russia is the only nation that still shows any interest in breeder reactors. The general consensus is that there is enough easily mined uranium ore to make breeders unnecessary in the immediately foreseeable future. Also, there is no apparent need for spent-fuel reprocessing. There has also been very little progress in creating central storage sites for spent fuel rods (many power plants have the spent fuel rods sitting out in the parking lot, in a fenced-off area). Because of the very real environmental impact of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, nuclear power plants need to continue to be advocated, along with appropriately sited hydroelectricity, solar power, wind power, etc. It is important to realize that ANY power source can involve unwelcome tradeoffs... for example, hydroelectricity damages ecosystems and wind power can play havoc with migratory birds. Solar power ultimately winds up competing with agriculture unless the solar sites are put in distant, desolate areas. Based on current trends, however, it appears the age of nuclear power is headed toward an inevitable end.


THE COAL CRISIS


Advanced Designs for Nuclear Reactors!

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