Nuclear History

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Nuclear History

WHAT IS NUCLEAR ENERGY ?

Nuclear energy is made up of tiny atoms. All matter has atoms. One drop of water has one six tillion atoms. It would take one hundred million atoms to equal the length of one centimeter. An atom is mostly empty space. At the center of an atom, there is a nucleus. The plural of nucleus is nuclei. Around the nucleus is a cloud of moving electrons. All the atom's mass is in the nucleus.

The nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons. A proton and a neutron have the same amount of mass. An electron has much less mass than a neutron or proton. It would take 2,000 electrons to equal the mass of one proton! The weight of an atom is based on the sum of the number of protons and neutrons.

HOW DOES NUCLEAR POWER WORK ?

Nuclear energy can be used to make electricity. But before you can have the electricity, you need to release the energy from the atom. It can be released from atoms in one of two ways: nuclear fusion or nuclear fission.

In nuclear fusion, energy is released when atoms are combined or fused together. This is also how the sun produces energy.

In nuclear fission, energy is released when atoms are split apart. Nuclear power plants use nuclear fission to produce electricity.

The fuel most used for nuclear fission is uranium.Uranium is called a nonrenewable source, though it is a common metal found in rocks all over the world. Nuclear plants use uranium as a fuel because it's atoms are easily split.

During nuclear fission, the uranium atom splits, releasing a great amount of energy in the form of things smaller than atoms called neutrons. The neutrons continue to bombard other uranium atoms, and the process repeats it self. This is called a nuclear chain reaction.

Now you know how we get the energy out of the atom. Now you're going to know how a nuclear power plant works.

Most electric power plants use fossil fuels like coal or natural gas to make electricity. Not nuclear power plants. Instead, nuclear power plants use the heat energy given off during nuclear fission to produce electricity.

The fission reaction takes place inside the reactor of a nuclear power plant, at the center of a nuclear reactor core. The core of the reactor contains the uranium fuel.

The uranium fuel is formed into ceramic pellets.

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