What is nuclear energy?

Does any one know what nuclear energy means?what it is? how it works??

• im doing this science report on nuclear energy, im totaly confused! HELP ME PLEASE!!! here are some of the questions im stuck on How is nuclear energy easily renewed? what is the ...show more

• Answer:

  Your first response answered your tech questions reasonably well, however I disagree on a few points. It's correct to say that the initial environmental overhead for nuclear is low compared with burning fossil fuels, however I think we should be comparing it with other options as well. Uranium mining is distrastrous, locally, and associated with exploitation of rural communities. This is not incidental--it's a direct consequence of the need to keep the overhead down and the option viable. Waste disposal carries similar consequences. There is no known disposal method which deals effectively with the waste over the entire period it is unsafe. Waste leakage is definitely not desirable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power Two more points. At present, nuclear power has limited applications on a small scale. I think there is a case to be made for the trend toward decentralized power production--this means, for instance, individual buildings or people producing power as appropriate for their purposes and locale (with wind, solar, etc.). It's a different paradigm, but if implemented well, could increase and stabilize our overall production, and reduce both impact and energy waste. I don't see nuclear in this lineup anytime soon. My second point is an ethical one. All systems break down now and then. With nuclear, no matter how unlikely it is, meltdowns will happen eventually. These disasters cause large-scale long-term damage quickly. You don't have to know anything about nuclear to observe this, and there are alternatives which have no such inevitable consequences that we know. Given that it also produces waste which we are unable to competently make safe, it seems clear to me that true ingenuity involves moving on for the time being. Until we know how to deal with the outcomes. Nuclear is not renewable. It is a fuel energy, requiring mining, just like fossil fuels. There is a finite quantity of usable fuel materials. Uranium is not abundant. Its concentrated energy is offset by its rarity. On another note, it is invalid to blame the detractors for directing our current energy production toward fossil fuels. Perhaps we should consider that it is the same drive for "limitless" energy which "fueled" both systems. Perhaps a reexamination of priorities is in order.