Nuclear Energi - A simplified view
...'Use of Uranium as a Source of Power'. The first report concluded that a bomb was feasible and that one containing some 12 kg of active material would be equivalent to 1,800 tons of TNT and would release large quantities of radioactive substances which would make places near the explosion site dangerous to humans for a long period. It estimated that a plant to produce 1kg of Uranium per day would cost £5 million and would require a large skilled labour force that was also needed for other parts of the war effort. Suggesting that the Germans could also be working on the bomb, it recommended that the work should be continued with high priority in cooperation with the Americans, even though they seemed to be concentrating on the future use of uranium for power. The second MAUD Report concluded that the controlled fission of uranium could be used to provide energy in the form of heat for use in machines. The two reports led to a complete reorganisation of work on the bomb. It was claimed that the work of the committee had put the British in the lead. The basic decision that the bomb project should be pursued as a matter of urgence was taken by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. The reports also led to high level reviews in the USA. Little emphasis was given to the bomb concept until 7 December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and the Americans entered the war. The huge resources of the USA were then applied without reservation to developing atomic bombs. The Manhattan Project I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds – Robert Oppenheimer The American effort increased rapidly and soon outstripped the British. Research continued in each country with some exchange of information. Several of the key British scientists visited the US early in 1942 and were given full access to all available information. In June 1942 the US Army took over process development, engineering design, procurement of materials and site selection for pilot plants for four methods of making fissionable material (because none of the four had been shown to be clearly superior). Mr Churchill sought information on the cost of building a diffusion plant and an atomic reactor in Britain. After many months of negotiations an agreement was finally signed by Mr Churchill and President Roosevelt in Quebec in August 1943. The British then handed over all of their reports to the Americans and received copies of the American progress reports. It was then clear that the entire US program would cost over $1,000 million, all for the bomb, as no work was being done on other applications of nuclear energy. A full-scale production reactor for plutonium was being constructed at Argonne. A team under Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos in New Mexico was working on the design and construction of Uranium and Plutonium bombs. The outcome of the huge effort, with assistance from the British teams, was that sufficient Plutonium and highly enriched Uranium was produced by mid-1945. The first atomic device tested successfully at Alamagordo in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. It used plutonium made in a nuclear pile. The teams did not consider that it was necessary to test a simpler Uranium device. The first atomic bomb, which contained Uranium, was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. The second bomb, containing Plutonium, was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August. On 10 August 1945 the Japanese Government Surrendered. Advantages and Disadvantages: For many years, it has been debated whether Nuclear Energy is the future or not. Here are some of the arguments from both sides: ADVANTAGE: Very little input needed: Only a very limited amount of raw materials are needed for nuclear energy, the only one being uranium. ADVANTAGE: Exhaustion of fossil fuels: Scientists have calculated that by the year 2030, our current reserves of fossil fuels, e.g. coal and oil and natural gas will be exhausted. This does not appear to be the case with nuclear power, since it uses uranium and a much more limited amount compared to the fossil fuels. If and when we may master the fusion process, the supply of raw materials will become unlimited. ADVANTAGE: Limited pollution: Compared with fossil fuels, nuclear energy creates less pollution, if any, and therefore does not contribute to the greenhouse effect or the creation of acid rain. Because nuclear energy waste can be stored underground, it won’t affect nature. ADVANTAGE: Space travel One of the most attractive, yet controversial, methods of powering a spacecraft on long journeys is by using nuclear energy. Our current chemical engines produce relatively little power. Nuclear rockets would be more powerful. These are the main arguments from the pro-nuclear lobbies and scientists around the world. Following is some of the counter-arguments: DISADVANTAGE: Potential health risk: Many statistics show that areas close to a nuclear power station can be affected and that the nuclear power plant creates health risk for the people living around it. The statistic shows that there is a rise in leukaemia around nuclear power stations. DISADVANTAGE: Nuclear power has a limited efficiency: Nuclear power has a limit to what it can be used for. Nuclear power can’t be used for two major industries such as transport and heating, it is simply to dangerous to use uranium in cars or for heating in houses because it is still to unstable. DISADVANTAGE: Affects the future: Nuclear waste can have a huge impact on the years to come because even though we can store it in underground, it still remains radioactive for many years, thus it will affect humans living near by and creates a potential health risk. DISADVANTAGE: Possibility of nuclear meltdown: A nuclear meltdown may be caused the cooling system in a nuclear power plant fails and the reactor overheats and becomes unstable, this will generate an enormous amount of heat and emit radioactivity. As one can see it’s not easy to decide whether or not nuclear energy is attractive to use, because even though there are potential health risks associated with it, it is a scientific fact that we will run out of fossil fuels and will need to find alternative forms of energy, nuclear being an obvious choice. The use of Nuclear Energy: The main use for nuclear energy today is the nuclear power-plants, providing thousands of people with power as an alternative to fossil fuels, e.g. Japan who has no fossil fuels of it’s own and have more than 50 nuclear power-plants. In the world we live in today and with the amount of power we need to feed all our high-technological equipment and not just personal equipment but also machinery in the industry and in the service sector, it is ironic that so many people oppose nuclear power when in reality we need it because in few decades our fossil fuels...