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nuclear energy — English
During the 1950s, nuclear energy emerged in the public awareness as an alternative form of energy, which is both sustainable and clean (that is, it does not cause the air pollution associated with the combustion of fossil fuels [see “fossil fuels” and “air pollution”]) and the application was – erroneously – regarded as inexpensive. (Bear in mind that massive progress in nuclear energy application was made during the Second World War [1939-1945] and after the war the research in this field continued. At that time, nuclear energy was very much a solution or a tool looking for a problem.) Nuclear energy generation uses uranium as raw material. A very small amount of uranium is required to generate an immense amount of energy. It soon became clear that the construction of nuclear powered energy plants plus all the necessary safety measures is an exorbitantly expensive pursuit. Getting rid of the radio-active waste material presents an equally serious and very expensive problem. The necessary safety measures cost a fortune, and the problem of financially affordable storage of large amounts of generated energy is still largely beyond our capability. Owing to the financial investment, the development of nuclear power plants is restricted to the affluent developed states, such as the USA, Canada, the Scandinavian countries, France, Russia and some other Western European countries, as well as Japan invested in the construction and operation of nuclear plants. The first serious warning that these plants might pose a serious threat to the local people as well as the environment was the incident at the Three Mile Nuclear Plant in Pennsylvania, USA, in 1979 when a malfunction caused the release of radio-active substances into the immediate environment of the plant. The second highly disconcerting incident happened in 1986 when a major malfunction and partial meltdown in the old, rather obsolete Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine (then still part of the USSR) released an enormous amount of radiation into the environment. The investigation into this nuclear accident revealed that the amount of radiation released was ten times (10 times) more than that of the nuclear bomb which destroyed the city of Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of the Second World War. In 2011 a seismic incident once again brought the dangers associated with nuclear plants to the fore. A powerful earthquake in Japan caused a “leakage” of radio-activity from the Fukushima nuclear electricity plant. Although it was a very serious situation it was soon brought under control because Japan had the necessary modern technology and know-how to deal with the matter. It did, however, stress the dangers associated with nuclear energy. If accidents can be completely prevented, safe disposal of radio-active waste can be guaranteed and the enormous amounts of cash to build the plants are available, nuclear energy might prove to be the preferred alternative to fossil fuels for generating electricity and the entire world might be able to use nuclear power, but we are still far short of that target.
