1. Nuclear Energy May 10, 2010

2. Define nuclear energy, fission, radiation, and nuclear waste Identify the most common nuclear fuels Describe the 2 major nuclear power accidents in history Objectives

3. Nuclear Energy: energy contained in the nucleus of an atom Nuclear energy comes from unstable particles like uranium or plutonium Fission: atoms being split apart to gain their energy “Fission is Division” Radiation: dangerous rays produced by splitting atoms Where does nuclear energy come from?

4. Nuclear reactions give off a large amount of heat The heat turns water into steam Steam turns turbines to produce electricity Materials that are used for nuclear reactions decay from the uranium or plutonium to produce nuclear waste How does it make electricity?

5. The US gets 19% of its electrical power from nuclear power The world uses 366 GW of power from nuclear energy 1 Gigawatt (GW) equal 1,000 Megawatts (MW) The state of PA gets 9,195 MW of power from nuclear energy How much power can we get?

6. There have only been 2 accidents worldwide with nuclear power Three Mile Island, Dauphin County, PA Chernobyl, Pripyat, Ukraine Accidents with Nuclear Power

7. A valve that contained water with uranium in it was stuck open Allowed large amounts of uranium out of the nuclear power plant Resulted in evacuations and new regulations for nuclear power plants to follow What happened at 3 Mile Island?

8. A loss of power in one of the reactors caused 2 explosions: a steam explosion and a hydrogen gas explosion Nuclear particles were thrown all over and the entire surrounding area had to be evacuated 56 people died as a result of the accident What happened at Chernobyl?

9. Disadvantages Nuclear energy has only resulted in 2 major accidents worldwide Nuclear materials (uranium, plutonium) are non-renewable resources The only way to use nuclear materials is by using fossil fuels Advantages It is only responsible for a fraction of the deaths as compared to coal mining Nuclear energy does not pollute the air Large amount of energy from small amounts of materials Advantages and Disadvantages

10. Some people believe that nuclear power will replace power from fossil fuels The US government receives more and more applications for building nuclear power plants each year Challenge will be to store used fuel Proposed to store all waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada Future of Nuclear Power