Developed leading up to World War 2, nuclear energy was developed by many scientists believing that it would be a powerful new source of energy. In question was nuclear fission, or breaking apart atoms to generate electricity, unlike nuclear fusion which is still undergoing development, which combines matter together to form new atoms. By the late nineteenth century, scientists had begun to solidify their model of the atom, and decades later, it was believed to have a central nuclear and rings of electrons. With this knowledge and government funding, scientists developed the first working model of nuclear energy in what is now known as the Manhattan project.

Electricity or a Weapon?

The United States was afraid that Germany might acquire nuclear weapons as a result of their heavy water tests in Norway, so they began work developing nuclear weapons of their own. However, scientists first developed a working model of a nuclear power plant, generating only a little electricity in a small area but demonstrating that nuclear energy was a viable and powerful energy source. This power was in a controlled environment, where scientists could ensure that nothing chaotic occurred with the enriched plutonium and uranium. Soon after, the government developed a nuclear weapon, which used an uncontrolled fission reaction to produce a very effective and deadly weapon, capable of destroying an entire city in seconds.

A nuclear energy plant uses enriched plutonium or uranium in a controlled nuclear fission process as described above, delivering plentiful and clean electricity that produces nothing more than spent radioactive fuel rods that are buried miles beneath the ground far away from any populated land. However, this has led to some fear that nuclear energy plants could undergo a “meltdown,” where safety mechanisms fail to activate and the reaction becomes uncontrolled. These fears grew after the scare of Three Mile Island and the partial meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor in Russia, the latter of which had to have a thick concrete “casket” built around it to keep the radiation inside.

However, improved building and safety codes all but ensure that those fears will never become a reality. Three Mile Island is still in full operational use today, supplying megawatts of power to the northeastern United States with no side effects to the environment. Regular maintenance and inspections also help to prevent against the negligibly small risk of a meltdown, and with plentiful nuclear fuel, nuclear energy will provide us with clean, efficient energy well into the years ahead.

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