NUCLEAR ENERGY

In recent years there has been discussion as to whether nuclear power can be categorised as “renewable”. In the context of sustainable development it shares many of the benefits of many renewables, it is a low-carbon energy source, it has a very small environmental impact, similarities that are in sharp contrast to fossil fuels. But commonly, nuclear power is categorised separately from ‘renewables’. Nuclear fission power reactors do use a mineral fuel and demonstrably depletes the available resources of that fuel.In the future nuclear power will make use of fast neutron reactors. As well as utilizing about 60 times the amount of energy from uranium, they will unlock the potential of using even more abundant thorium as a fuel. In addition, some 1.5 million tonnes of depleted uranium now seen by some people as little more than a waste, becomes a fuel resource. In effect, they will ‘renew’ their own fuel resource as they operate. The consequence of this is that the available resource of fuel for fast neutron reactors is so plentiful that under no practical terms would the fuel source be significantly depleted.
‘Renewables’, as currently defined, would offer no meaningful advantage over fast neutron reactors in terms of availability of fuel supplies. Most also tend to make very large demands on resources to construct the plant used for harnessing the natural energy - per kilowatt hour produced, much more than nuclear power.
Until about 1800 the principal fuel was wood, its energy derived from solar energy stored in plants during their lifetimes. Since the Industrial Revolution, people have depended on fossil fuels—coal and petroleum—also derived from stored solar energy. When a fossil fuel such as coal is burned, atoms of hydrogen and carbon in the coal combine with oxygen atoms in air; water and carbon dioxide are produced and heat is released, equivalent to about 1.6 kwh per kg or about 10 eV per atom of carbon. This amount of energy is typical of chemical reactions resulting from changes in the electronic structure of the atoms. A part of the energy released as heat keeps the adjacent fuel hot enough to keep the reaction going.energy released during the splitting or fusing of atomic nuclei. The energy of any system, whether physical, chemical, or nuclear, is manifested by its ability to do work or to release heat or radiation. The total energy in a system is always conserved, but it can be transferred to another system or changed in form.