Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Fission

Chernobyl, Ukraine. April 26, 1986. A nuclear reactor had exploded due to poorly trained workers and a badly executed monitoring procedure. It took over 600,000 emergency workers and firefighters to end the madness. By the end, 63,000 square miles of land were impacted and could not be used for crops. At least 5 million people were sick or disabled, and 985,000 were left dead. Even today, 4.5 million people have their houses on affected land, and are eating food that has been poisoned by this incident. The damage that nuclear power can do is off the charts, and although it doesn’t pollute the air like fossil fuels do, it can wreak havoc. Right now, 4.5 million people are sitting on radiation, smelling radiation, eating radiation, and living on radiation. Nuclear fission is what caused all the destruction. Nuclear fission occurs when an atom splits and releases energy. Nuclear fission is cheap and produces more energy than fossil fuels, but it releases hazardous waste. Another method of using energy must be found. Enter nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is the exact opposite of fission, in which two atoms join together. Fusion is one of the most heavily-researched topics in the world right now because it has the potential to

Nuclear fusion is the process of atoms joining together. Fusion was discovered in the 1930’s when scientists found that fusion powered the sun, and also that it was able to be controlled on earth. In the 1940’s, scientists started trying to find methods of containing and harnessing nuclear fusion, which at the time was a new topic to them. During fusion, atomic nuclei have to be heated to extreme temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees. When temperatures go up, the nuclei of atoms gain speed, pushing against each other. When the temperatures are high enough, the nuclei of atoms will push against each other with enough force to join, resulting in a release of