Nuclear Power Plants

What do nuclear power plants release?Energy!

How do these power plants provide us with energy?

Energy is collected from the nucleus of decaying radioactive elements

How powerful is the energy released from the nucleus of a decaying radioactive isotope?

We can use the following equation

E=mc2

E= Energy

m= mass

c=speed of light (3.0 x 108)

What happens when you square a number?

**This means that a small amount of mass can produce an extremely large amount of energy**

Nuclear FissionNuclear fission: when an atomic nucleus is split into two or more fragments

When lots of atoms are split it causes a chain reaction

If this occurs too quickly an explosion will occur (this is what happens when an atom bomb explodes).

Nuclear power plants in the US are nuclear fission

power plants

Nuclear FusionNuclear fusion: two or more nuclei combine to form a larger nucleus

This releases a large amount of energy

Produces energy in stars like our sun

Produces 20 times more energy than nuclear fission

This causes no radioactive products to be produced so we wouldn’t need to worry about nuclear disposal

Hard to start the reaction because it needs a large initial input of energy in the form of heat

What are some benefits of nuclear

power plants?Clean energy

Can get a lot of energy from a small amount of mass

Cost effective in the long run

What are some disadvantages to nuclear power plants?

Expensive to build the power plants

What do we do with the nuclear waste?

Nuclear power plant accidents

Can be used as a weapon