Nuclear Power: One hell of a Way to Boil Water

You all must have heard about the famous Einstein's equation i.e. E=mc². 

Introduction:

• Nuclear power is basically a way of power generation. Uranium 235 is a radioactive element which contains 92 protons and 143 neutrons.
• This is a stable structure but if just one neutron add up then it become Uranium 236 which is highly unstable and it gets distributed into five parts; Barium, Krypton and 3 neutrons.
• Also, a lot of energy is produced. Further, these 3 neutrons collide with another Uranium 235 and then this becomes a chain reaction. Therefore, in nuclear fission bomb, this happens in an uncontrolled way and thus turns out in a big explosion which can destroy anything in it's way. 

• But, the Uranium used in nuclear bomb is of very very pure form whereas we need to use impure form of Uranium in Nuclear Reactor.
• The process that happens in Nuclear Reactor is controlled with the help of Cadmium and Boron rods.
• The chamber in Nuclear reactor consists of Uranium and the bombarding process continues but with the help of these rods, absorption of excess neutrons take place to control the reaction and thus after this heat energy generated is used to boil the water, which will create steam and thus steam is used to rotate the turbine. 
• According to Einstein equation, an enormous amount of energy is generated as "c" is it's equation is the speed of light which is 3 x 10⁸ m/s and it's square will become further large value.

Advantages of Nuclear Energy:

• The carbon emissions are very less compared to fossil fuel energy generation power plants therefore it is essential to our response to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

• It is estimated the amount of energy released in a nuclear fission reaction is ten million times greater than the amount released in burning a fossil fuel atom. Therefore, it has high energy density.
• It provide stability because this can work synergistic with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy:

• Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: Nuclear Energy made a violent entry as within just one year of testing, it completely destroyed two major cities of Japan i.e Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However afterwards it is then used for power generation but it is intimately connected with Nuclear weapons technology. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons serves the purpose of spreading nuclear power technology but in around 40 years five countries have developed their own nuclear weapons with the help of reactor technology.

• Nuclear Waste and Pollution: Spent nuclear fuel is not only radioactive but also contains highly poisonous elements like Plutonium and it loses its harmfulness over hundreds of years and also there is a process called reprocessing which means the extraction of Plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. It can be used to make nuclear weapons or to use as a new fuel.
• Accidents and Disasters: In over 60 years, there have been over 7 major disasters i.e mainly accidents in reactors. 4 of them released toxic radioactive elements in the environment and large areas of land in Russia, Ukraine and Japan went unfit for human to live in for decades to come.

Advancements:

• United States is the largest producer of nuclear power whereas France has the largest share of electricity produced by nuclear power.
• The UAE has successfully developed the intellectual and physical infrastructure necessary for the use of nuclear energy to generate safe, clean and reliable baseload electricity on 10th August, 2020 which when fully operated, will fill 25% of UAE' electricity needs thus preventing the release of around 21 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually equivalent to removing of 32 lakh cars off road.
• Nuclear power in India is just 2% of the total energy produced and India is still dependent on fossil fuels but the government is working on increasing its nuclear power capacity to 22,480 MW by 2031 from the present 7380 MW and the indigeniously -build third unit of Kakrapar Atomic Power Station will help India in achieving its target. It is having a total capacity of 700MW. 

 Operational Nuclear Power Plants in India:

Stay tuned to BYJU'S Exam Prep for more Technology articles. In the coming week, we will be posting an article on Electric Vehicles.

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