Fission Power: The Pros, the Cons, and the Math

The process of nuclear fission was first discovered in 1938; however, it wasn"t fully explained until a year later. Today - less than 100 years after its initial discovery - it is the poster child of the ‘green energy’ movement (and not in a good way) that is sweeping across the globe. Most of what we hear about the pitfalls of using fission technology are sensationalist, but there is no doubt that it has been linked to huge environmental catastrophes. Recently, reports have stated that the radioactivity level spiked to a level 6,500 times higher than the previous day at Fukushima. This process has also been linked to non-localized devastation. During Chernobyl, the Soviet government evacuated about 115,000 people from the most heavily contaminated areas in 1986; however, another 220,000 people had to be evacuated from surrounding areas in subsequent years

Now, there is a huge debate amongst people as to whether governments world-wide should pursue the continuation of developing safer nuclear power plants, or if it should be scrapped all together in place of something that is perceived as "safer." Given the overall importance of the debate to the environment and to our exponentially growing energy needs, everyone should have a proper understanding of the topic; however, for the most part - very few people have more than a very basic understanding of the science and mathematics behind the process. In this article, I want to attempt a more thorough explanation than you may have read before.

To learn about the pros and cons of this process (and the math behind it), see: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/fission-power-the-pros-the-cons-and-the-math/

Image source:
http://www.cpepweb.org/nuclear_sm_large.html