User:Guy vandegrift/Lectures/Nuclear power
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See also User:Guy vandegrift/Lectures. Useful Wikiversity quizzes 1408987 and 1409050 Lifted and modified from Special:Permalink/619329035 (Nuclear power)and stored here for educational purposes.
Nuclear power, or nuclear energy, is the use of exothermic nuclear processes,[1] to generate useful heat and electricity. The term includes nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion. Nuclear (fission) power stations, excluding the contribution from naval nuclear fission reactors, provided about 5.7% of the world's energy. And, nuclear power provided 13% of the world's electricity in 2012.[2] In 2013, the IAEA report that there are 437 operational nuclear power reactors,[3] in 31 countries,[4] although not every reactor is producing electricity.[5] In addition, there are approximately 140 naval vessels using nuclear propulsion in operation, powered by some 180 reactors.[6][7][8]
As of 2013, attaining a net energy gain from sustained nuclear fusion reactions remains an ongoing area of international physics and engineering research. More than 60 years after the first attempts, commercial fusion power production remains unlikely before 2050.[9]
There is an ongoing debate about nuclear power.[10][11][12]
Nuclear power plant accidents include the Chernobyl disaster (1986), Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011), and the Three Mile Island accident (1979).[13] There have also been some nuclear submarine accidents.[13][14][15] In terms of lives lost per unit of energy generated, analysis has determined that nuclear power has caused less fatalities per unit of energy generated than the other major sources of energy generation. Energy production from coal, petroleum, natural gas and hydropower has caused a greater number of fatalities per unit of energy generated due to air pollution and energy accident effects.[16][17][18][19][20] However, the economic costs of nuclear power accidents is high, and meltdowns can take decades to clean up. The human costs of evacuations of affected populations and lost livelihoods is also significant.[21][22]
Along with other sustainable energy sources, nuclear power is a low carbon power generation method of producing electricity, with an analysis of the literature on its total life cycle emission intensity finding that it is similar to other renewable sources in a comparison of greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions per unit of energy generated.[23] With this translating into, from the beginning of nuclear power station commercialization in the 1970s, having prevented the emission of approximately 64 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent(GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gases, gases that would have otherwise resulted from the burning of fossil fuels in thermal power stations.[24]
As of 2012, according to the IAEA, worldwide there were 68 civil nuclear power reactors under construction in 15 countries.[3].
Japan's 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which occurred in a reactor design from the 1960s, prompted a re-examination of nuclear safety and nuclear energy policy in many countries.[25] Germany decided to close all its reactors by 2022, and Italy has banned nuclear power.[25] Following Fukushima, in 2011 the International Energy Agency halved its estimate of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035.[26][27]