This spent fuel will be radioactive for thousands of years, and can be harmful to people or the environment, so managing it is one of the biggest challenges of nuclear power, just as the air pollution from fossil fuels and the electronic waste from solar panels are serious challenges for other forms of energy. Because nuclear fuel is not burned like coal or gas, the same amount of fuel that goes into a reactor comes out after the fuel is used. A uranium fuel pellet the size of your finger can produce as much energy as one ton of coal or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Usually, this heat is used to boil water and turn a turbine, making electricity. The massive energy released by this nuclear fission makes the reactor incredibly hot. When the atoms split, they release more neutrons, so more and more atoms split in a chain reaction. Here, free neutrons circulate until the fuel absorbs them, which triggers the atoms to split. In a nuclear power plant, a fuel with high concentrations of these atoms is placed in a secure device called a nuclear reactor. Some atoms, like uranium-235 and plutonium-239, are prone to breaking apart when collided with particles called neutrons. In fact, nuclear power could meet the average American’s lifetime energy needs with an amount of fuel that would fit in a soda can. In the U.S., nuclear power provides more than half of our carbon-free electricity.īecause the nuclear bonds inside atoms hold so much energy, nuclear power plants can make more energy with less fuel than any other technology today. Scientists have claimed to be on the brink of cracking nuclear fusion for decades, but hopefully with any luck that promise may finally be coming true.Nuclear energy is energy made by breaking the bonds that hold particles together inside an atom, a process called “nuclear fission.” This energy is “carbon-free,” meaning that like wind and solar, it does not directly produce carbon dioxide (CO 2) or other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Start-ups like Helion Energy are also working toward this goal using magnetic coils to compression the reactor core. That said, labs like the U.S.’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) and France’s International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) have made progress in recent years with NIF reporting last summer that their reactor was able to generate up to 70 percent of its input energy. However, actually achieving this is easier said than done. In theory, after this initial power push the fusion reactor should then be able to create and sustain even more power than was initially fed into it. One problem facing fusion technology is that in order to create self-sustaining power (a point called “fusion ignition”) it needs to be sparked by a massive amount of energy. However, achieving and controlling fusion has been a lot more difficult for scientists to crack than fission. Unlike fission, nuclear fusion also has the added benefit of being self-sustaining without creating harmful waste. This interaction creates a huge burst of energy that is still burning at the heart of stars all across the universe. two hydrogen atoms combining to form one helium atom). Instead of breaking something apart, nuclear fusion happens when light atoms are smashed together to create a heavier atom (e.g. Unlike its sibling, nuclear fusion has largely been restricted to the realm of science fiction until recently. AI Can Now Control the Plasma in a Nuclear Reactor.MIT, Bill Gates-Backed Startup Partner on Fusion.This Reactor Just Made Fusion Viable by 2030.Companies like NuScale, TerraPower and X-Energy are already hard at work to bring these possibilities to life. For this reason it may be easier in the future to run an SMR in a remote community to create sustainable power or to power a spacecraft using a microreactor. Ranging between the size of a shipping container and a jet engine, these smaller scale reactors are designed to be more nimble than traditional nuclear power plants. Additionally, dedicating large complexes to nuclear power plants may become less popular as small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors come on the scene. molten salt instead of water coolant) and machine learning software incorporated into these plants that make them safer than their predecessors. In recent years there have been advances in both materials (e.g. However, it may be too soon to count nuclear fission out quite yet. remains lukewarm even today, according to a 2022 Pew Research Survey. As a result, public opinion on nuclear energy in the U.S. While nuclear fission may be less damaging to the environment than burning oil or coal, this energy source has faced its own crises in the form of pollution from radioactive waste and deadly meltdowns of aging power plants like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play
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