Nuclear Power
Nuclear energy is the most powerful kind of energy in the world. Nuclear power can come from the fission, the act or process of splitting into parts, of uranium, plutonium or thorium or the fusion of hydrogen into helium. One fifth of the world's electricity is produced by nuclear power plants. The U.S is the current top nuclear generating country. A large plant can generate about a million kilowatts of electricity. Nuclear power shows much potential for the future. The only problem that working with nuclear power has is that sometimes meltdowns can occur which can be very dangerous.
In the United States, there are eighty-three power plants; each power plant can contain on or more nuclear reactors. All together, there are one hundred and five operational nuclear reactors in the U.S. From the beginning of the nuclear power age, twenty-five nuclear reactors or atomic reactors have been shut down or decommissioned.
CANDU Nuclear Power Plant at Qinshan, China
English: Nuclear power plant in Cattenom, France D...
English: This graph illustrates the potential rise...There are currently thirty-two nuclear power plants under construction all over the world, the International Atomic Energy Agency reports. Europe also relies much on nuclear power. Europe produces more nuclear energy than the U.S. does even though it's smaller.
Not everyone has been successful with nuclear power, but the French have succeeded with flying colors. France uses nuclear power for seventy-seven percent of all its power supply. That's pretty amazing for France, being such a small country compared to the U.S.
One major issue for future power plants is terrorism. There are many threats of terrorism and because of this the plants will have to tighten their security. Some people think that new plants shouldn't be built because of such high construction costs which can span from $2-$6 billion. The future of nuclear power plants is still not clear. But, there are other uses for nuclear...