NUCLEAR POWER INTRODUCTION

The pursuit of nuclear energy for electricity generation began soon after the discovery. In the early 20th century, nuclear energy for electricity generation was being pursuit after its discovery. Radioactive elements, such as radium, released immense amounts of energy, according to the principle of mass-energy equivalence. However, it was impractical to harness such energy. This is because intensely radioactive elements were, by their very nature, short-lived.

In 1934, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted experiments in Rome that showed neutrons could split many kinds of atoms. In the fall of 1938, German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman fired neutrons from a source containing the elements radium and beryllium into uranium (atomic number 92). The result of the experiment was the production of lighter elements, such as barium (in the leftover materials)

 

Hahn and Strassman contacted Lise Meitner in Copenhagen before publicizing their discovery. She worked with Niels Bohr and her nephew, Otto R. Frisch. Meitner and Frisch thought the barium and other light elements in the leftover material resulted from the uranium splitting — or fissioning. However, when she added the atomic masses of the fission products, they did not total the uranium’s mass. Meitner used Einstein’s theory to show the lost mass changed to energy. This proved fission occurred and confirmed Einstein’s work.

 In the United States, where Fermi and Szilárd had both emigrated, this led to the creation of the first man-made reactor, known as Chicago Pile-1, which achieved criticality on December 2, 1942. This work became part of the Manhattan Project, which made enriched uranium and built large reactors to breed plutonium for use in the first nuclear weapons, which were used on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After the war, the United States government encouraged the development of nuclear energy

for peaceful civilian purposes. Congress created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946. The AEC authorized the construction of Experimental Breeder Reactor I at a site in Idaho. The reactor generated the first electricity from nuclear energy on December 20, 1951.

A major goal of nuclear research in the mid-1950s was to show that nuclear energy could produce electricity for commercial use. The first commercial electricity-generating plant powered by nuclear energy was located in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. It reached its full design power in 1957. Light-water reactors like Shippingport use ordinary water to cool the reactor core during the chain reaction. They were the best design then available for nuclear powerplants.

Federal nuclear energy programs shifted their focus to developing other reactor technologies. The nuclear power industry in the U.S. grew rapidly in the 1960s. Utility companies saw this new form of electricity production as economical, environmentally clean, and safe. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, growth slowed. Demand for electricity decreased and concern grew over nuclear issues, such as reactor

safety, waste disposal, and other environmental considerations. Although there issues questioned, Nuclear energy supply produced in the U.S was 22 percent of its electricity production.