The Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Power Plants

Nuclear energy is energy inside the nucleus of an atom and it is the energy that is holding the proton and neutrons together. Nuclear energy can be converted by a power plant into electrical energy and the power plant is called nuclear power plant. There is two ways to obtain the energy. There is nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion is where atoms are combined together to form a larger atom and nuclear fission is where the atoms are split to produce the energy. In fact, nuclear power plant only can use nuclear fission to produce energy.

So how does nuclear power plant works? Uranium is split and is used to boil water to produce steam so that the generator will work. So this is the diagram of the nuclear power plant.

Basically, water are condensed and stored in a tank below the turbine. Then the pump pumps out the water from the tank to go into the steam generator. The containment structure has two compartments that are linked together. So the pressurized water moderator and coolant is pumped to the control rods. The control rod is made of steel pressured vessels so that the water will remain liquid at 320 degree Celsius.

The disadvantages of using nuclear power plant are it has a high risk of accident, take long time to construct, high construction cost, its waste can last for 200-500 thousand years, the waste are extremely dangerous, amount of uranium are limited and where to dispose the radioactive waste is a