Nuclear Power
Overview
Nuclear power is a valuable and controversial source of energy in many nations around the world. Originally heralded as a reliable source of clean, safe power, two accidents raised concerns about the wisdom of continued reliance on nuclear power. However, with a limited store of fossil fuels, concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, drawbacks in alternative power sources, and the limited natural resources of many nations, nuclear power is likely to remain an important source of power for many years.
Background
The first nuclear reactor of which there is a record began operation about two billion years ago in a sandstone bed in what is now Gabon, in the western part of Africa. This natural reactor operated intermittently for tens of millions of years, unheralded and unknown until discovered by French scientists in the 1970s. It is not known if the Oklo reactor (named after the part of Gabon where it lies) was unique in the world or if other natural nuclear reactors operated at other times, but there is no doubt that this body of uranium ore did indeed operate as a nuclear reactor when algae was the most advanced life on earth.
Research into nuclear fission began in the 1930s, when Lise Meitner (1878-1968) and Otto Hahn (1879-1968) first showed that uranium atoms could be made to break apart, or fission, when struck by a neutron.
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