America With Nuclear Technology Essay

The Future of America with Nuclear Technology

Nuclear technology has come a long way recently, and it has been developing in many countries. It has many uses, such as energy and it can be used in warfare. Some people believe that nuclear weapons and power plants are so dangerous that they should be banned. Others believe that nuclear energy is worth the dangers and that nuclear bombs protect the United States from other countries. The purpose of this paper is to inform you on how nuclear power is harvested and whether its uses are worth the risks.

In order to use a nuclear material such as Uranium, it has to go through many processes to become usable. Its main two uses are for nuclear weapons and also for energy. Nuclear energy by definition is

“By separating an atom into two lighter atoms, there is a net loss of mass. This mass is not exactly lost but rather transformed into massive amounts of energy. This is what is referred to as nuclear fission. By controlling these reactions

Some of the pros are that nuclear energy is “Relatively low in cost and pollution, sustainable, reliable, and efficient”(Maehlum 1). The price of beginning a nuclear facility is expensive, but as time goes on, it becomes much less expensive to operate. There is also only a slight amount of pollution caused by nuclear energy and it is much cleaner than some of the resources we are using today to create energy. Nuclear energy also is very reliable and can be used for the next eighty years. This time limit could increase if nuclear facilities are converted to where they use Thorium instead of Uranium. Also, if they figure out how to control fusion, this could make nuclear energy unlimited. Nuclear energy is already widely used in America. “There are 104 commercial nuclear power plants in the United States producing a whopping 806.2 TWh of electricity, in other words about 20 % of the entire electricity generation (2008)” (Maehlum