Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Generating electricity from fusion power remains the focus of international research.
Civilian nuclear power supplied 2,586 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in 2019, equivalent to about 10% of global electricity generation, and was the second-largest low-carbon power source after hydroelectricity. As of January 2021, there are 442 civilian fission reactors in the world, with a combined electrical capacity of 392 gigawatt (GW). There are also 53 nuclear power reactors under construction and 98 reactors planned, with a combined capacity of 60 GW and 103 GW, respectively. The United States has the largest fleet of nuclear reactors, generating over 800 TWh zero-emissions electricity per year with an average capacity factor of 92%. Most reactors under construction are generation III reactors in Asia.
Nuclear power has one of the lowest levels of fatalities per unit of energy generated compared to other energy sources. Coal, petroleum, natural gas and hydroelectricity each have caused more fatalities per unit of energy due to air pollution and accidents. Since its commercialization in the 1970s, nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and the emission of about 64 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent that would have otherwise resulted from the burning of fossil fuels.
Accidents in nuclear power plants include the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union in 1986, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, and the more contained Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979.
There is a debate about nuclear power. Proponents, such as the World Nuclear Association and Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, contend that nuclear power is a safe, sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions. Nuclear power opponents, such as Greenpeace and NIRS, contend that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment.
I know that nuclear engineering requires some quantum mechanics but I want to know how much. Are there any textbooks that can fulfill the requirements for quantum mechanics in terms of nuclear engineering? I have heard of this book and I am a fan of old fashioned...
I'm doing a paper on the strong nuclear force for a nuclear physics class. I want to give a good quantitative account for it. I'm very familiar with Lagrangian field theory but not so much with QFT or QCD. I don't have time to learn all of the ins and outs of QFT and for this paper and for this...
What are some standard math courses that nuclear engineers take in college? Do they do more math than calculus 2? Do they use a lot of geometry? What are some standard math books that they will read during their math studies? In general I am referring to the nuclear engineers that work in the...
I have a bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering and I am interested in CFD. I have an admit offer for MS in Nuclear Engineering at UIUC with RA and MS in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford without any assistantship. Which one is a better option to choose considering the fact that I am not a...
So as we all know (or at least I assume) Global Warming is real and happening, I am a teen, 17, and not trying to get answers for homework or anything like that.
I just want to know, is it possible to create fusion using the temperature found at active Geo-thermal sites to reach the temp...
I just want to know what is the effect of proton spin & coloumbs repulsive force & nuclear interaction on binding energy.
Plzz explain with derivation.
I just want to know what is the effect of proton spin & coloumbs repulsive force & nuclear interaction on binding energy.
Please explain with derivation.
Hi, I'm currently doing an assignment on nuclear physics. One of the questions in said assignment is asking me to state the decays which usually happen within a nuclear power plant, as well as stating the fission products, explaining what's happening, and showing the equation. One of the sites...
hi there!
I am nurul ain,new member here.
I have a question regarding gamma ray detector, the high purity germanium detector or aka HPGe. What is meant by the detection efficiency at specific gamma-ray energy (εγ)? and whether the emission probability of the corresponding gamma-ray energy and...
Fukushima disaster aside, the USA has only 19% of its energy needs from nuclear plants: see here. Being a free energy, I wonder whether there are reasons, other than safety concerns, that prevents the US from depending more on nuclear energy?
Homework Statement
Our instructor asked to find 6 nuclear fission equations related to 235u. I found only 1-2 example. But none of them has shown the steps about fragments to be stable and thermal energy created in that equation. I know it was a mistake. Please help me out.
Homework...
So, my current understanding of spin is that when particles with a certain spin state hit a stern gerlach device, their wavefunction is split into components, deflection associated with one of the pure spin states aligned with the device. For spin 1/2 particles, there are only supposed to be two...
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193175
The report http://www.spirit.kauwila.net/wordpress_kauilapele/Critical_Technology_Assessment_in_Israel_and_NATO_Nations_nuc_report.pdf
Did they read the recent physics papers about the atoms? Overall what sources of information did the old Manhatten Project Scientist like Edward Teller and Robert Oppenheimer use? I bet they must have really enjoyed what they did to be so good at it.
I am close to finishing learning calculus on my own, I am reading quick calculus
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471827223/?tag=pfamazon01-20
And I finished reading Merrill Physics and Principles(really liked the book) although I am still taking general physics class in HS...
1)
Alpha particles can react with 48-Ca to produce protons. Consider a beam of alpha particles of current 20nA fired at a think target of Ca of thickness $$1mg/cm^2$$. A detector subtending a solid angle of 4*10^-3 steradians, records 20 protons per second. Determine the total cross section (in...
Can someone please explain to me why the answer to the following question is Krypton? A step by step solution would be ideal please!
(b)The following reaction occurs in a nuclear reactor:
235U+01n →141Ba+X+301n+202.5MeV
(i) Identify the element X.
Many thanks!
(Question is Q12 b part i...
Hi I’m a high school senior taking physics and had this crazy idea for nuclear waste disposal.
Given:
Space is a good place to put nuclear waste
Rockets can malfunction possibly leading to their nuclear waste payload being being dispersed
I thought of looking toward a rail gun. I found a...
Hi everyone, I hope this type of question is allowed on these forums.
As part of my school curriculum, we are required to develop a research question in any field of science that we choose, and were given a reasonable length of time to do this. I, however, entered the school late and thus...
Homework Statement
How close does the alpha particle gets to the nucleus in gold foil scatering experiment?Homework Equations
Ek = 2.0 MeV
W=F delta x
F=(kq1q2)/r^2
W=(kq1q2)/r
E=W=(kq1q2)/r
The Attempt at a Solution
E= (k(79)(2) e^2)/r
2.0MeV= (k(158)e^2)/r
2,000,000 eV = 8.99 Wm^2 c^-2 ((158)...
I have looked around for help with this, including on existing threads, but I can't quite find what I'm looking for.
I know that in the nuclear shell model we fill the shells in the same way as with electrons, so 2 protons in the first and 6 in the second etc, with the same being true for...
I was doing my homework and really got stuck on one question. Not looking for just an answer as that is useless, I really want to understand how to do this problem as I have no idea how to involve some of the givens.
UO_2 is a common fuel for reactors. If the fuel is enriched to 4 atomic percent...
Hello all,
I'm trying to answer a question about a meson and a proton interacting to form a neutron and an unknown meson- to be determined. The equation is :
(Anti up and strange) + (uud) --> udd + (xy)
I arrived at strange and anti down OR anti strange and down. Are both possibilities...
Homework Statement
(This isn't a typical problem here so feel free to suggest an alternative forum category or website.)
I'm trying to do research for a paper about nuclear waste and depleted uranium storage by the DOD. I have a lot of questions I need to answer before I can get too far into...
Homework Statement
I have two questions.
1.The definition of binding energy is the work needed to split the nucleus into its constituent protons and neutrons. The strong nuclear force keeps the nucleus together hence is it right for me to say the binding energy is equal to the energy of the...
Is the weak nuclear force really a force? How can an electron be ejected from a nucleus which has many protons; wouldn't positive charges hold it back?
So I'm in Grade 9 and I have been thinking about careers and I've found myself to most interested in Nuclear and Theoretical Physics. I was wondering if I could do both as a career without dying from exhaustion. Also if I could work it out how many additional years of schooling is it after Grade...
Hi everyone. I'm just looking for an online description of the nuclear magnetic resonance machine, with explanations of all components, and their physical principles...anyone can help me? Giving me any link to a website talking about it?
In addiction, could be this be a valid topic for a...
Hi, sorry if this is a novice question. I've recently been introduced to Q value in nuclear and particle physics and all the places I've looked at define it as the change in rest energy between the initial particles and final particles.
##Q=E_f-E_i=(m_f-m_i)c^2##
But this doesn't take into...
Ok, so nuclear fusion is given by the formula E=MC2, where E = Energy, M = Rest mass and C = 299792458. To my understanding, this means that if two protons collide under the incredibly high speeds/temperatures(like they do in the sun), they will fuse, having reduced mass and that mass is...
Because there are only so many characters I can put in the title I will future explain down here. I want to do design/work on many things... I don't know how likely it is for me to do these things, but I want to work on electric motors, generators, nuclear reactors, Combustion engines, steam...
Homework Statement
[/B]
b) For a Form factor of form ##\theta_{(1-r)}## and ##\frac{1}{1 + e^{\frac{r-R}{a}}}##, how will these change when ##r \rightarrow 2r##?
c) How would one accelerate and observe scattered protons?
Homework EquationsThe Attempt at a Solution
Part(b)
[/B]
Rate of...
Homework Statement
http://www.boredofstudies.org/wiki/images/b/bb/Sci_phys_quanta_strong_force.png
I had a question where I was given the strong nuclear force graph and asked to add the electrostatic force to the graph. It was a graph showing the forces between two protons. It was a three mark...
Homework Statement
Knowing the Z (number of protons) of an element, how can I find N (number of neutrons) or A (mass number) of the element?
Homework Equations
I tried to use the semi-empirical mass formula EB = ανΑ - αsA2/3 - αcZ2/A1/3 - αΑ(Α-2Ζ)2/Α - δ(Α,Ζ) for this.
The Attempt at a...
This isn't really my area (I'm a mechanical engineering graduate), but I thought maybe somebody on the forum could give me feedback or help redirect my thinking if this is not right.
So, neutrinos are famous for not really doing anything, just kind of being there (by this I mean being the...
Show by direct calculation that Eqs. (4-134) and (4-137) in the textbook by Duderstadt and Hamilton hold, i.e.:(a) ∫ dΩΩiΩj= 4π/3 δij; i,j = x,y,z;
4π(b) ∫ dΩΩxΩyΩz = 0, if l, m, or n is odd.
4π
The integrals are over 4π.
This is part of the derivation of the diffusion equation...
I was trying to calculate the ##^{19}_{9}F_{10}## nuclear spin using the nuclear shell method. From what i know the nuclear spin for a nucleous with odd ##A## is the total angular momentum ##J## of the stand-alone nucleon:
P: ##(1d_{5 \backslash 2})^1## (stand-alone nucleon)
N: ##(1d_{5...
Homework Statement
Calculate the activity of ##^{222}Rn## in an ore sample containing 5g of natural uranium.
Homework Equations
##^{238}U## decay chain (to Radon): ##^{238}U\rightarrow^{234}Th\rightarrow^{234}Pa\rightarrow^{234}U\rightarrow^{230}Th\rightarrow^{226}Ra\rightarrow^{222}Ra##...
I was recently offered a job by the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to be a civilian Nuclear Engineer in the Nuclear Fluids and Mechanical Engineering Department. I will be graduating with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in the spring (3.70 GPA), and have accepted this offer for employment, though its...
Hello,
Is "Nuclear Materials" an area with good expectations? I know that materials are very important for nuclear civil: reactors lifetime, safety and performance, but I'm not sure to what point this a good prospects subject, when compared with other nuclear related domaines (safety, radiation...
I am currently a nuclear engineering undergraduate. I was curious what the job perspective is with only a bachelors degree. How about with a masters? P.h.D?
I will be graduating with a Nuclear Engineering Honors Degree in Science.
My book is trying to explain why atomic radii decreases as you move toward the right side of the periodic table because the effective nuclear charge increases. I understand why an increase in effective nuclear charge results in a smaller radius, but I don't know why the effective nuclear charge...
What courses can I pursue after my undergrad education that will enable me to work on next gen nuclear technologies?
What kinds of people work in these areas and what career paths do they choose?
I've read a lot about the different kinds of people working on Gen 4 reactors(LFTRs, TWRs) and...
Hey everyone. I'm looking to study nuclear physics and want to look into new forms of every. So fusion would be cool but probibly new forms of fission or even using waste to make energy. But I don't know what I want to get into. Any dirrational help would be cool. Thanks!
Hi to all,
I am currently a student studying chemistry in high-school. My teacher has a program which he runs on very old laptops called the PAX Nuclear Reactor Simulator. I have a bit of experience writing code in C and Java. My teacher has mentioned that the school may trash the laptops which...
A person said:
"However uranium-235 (U235) makes up only 0.72% of normal uranium metal and has to be separated from the remainder (mostlyuranium-238) in special factories which makes uranium-235 (U-235) a little more expensive. An uranium-235 (U-235) atomic has three neutrons less than an...
1. Consider the reaction that happens when a photon collides with an atomic electron in rest ##\gamma+e^{-} <---> K^{-} + v_{e}##. The masses of all particles can be considered as known. What is the minimal energy that the photon needs to have to make this reaction work?2. Conservation of four...
There are reports of a renewed reactor shutdown at Zaporizhya, the Ukraine's largest nuclear power station, as well as rumors of possible radiation leaks:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-30/ukraine-hiding-huge-radiation-leak-largest-nuclear-power-plant-Europe
Given wretched weather and a...