Part One: What Is Nuclear Energy, How Was It Discovered,
and How Is It Created?
An Apocalyptic Event Like No Other
Picture this: You are living in 1986 Kyiv, Ukraine. You, your two daughters, and 80,000 other people have been ordered to evacuate the city. There are so many people boarding trains that, by your reckoning, they have all entered attack mode rather than evacuation mode. You eventually find yourself in St. Petersburg, Russia, where one of your daughters is ordered to leave her shoes behind as they are now deemed dangerous. Your other daughter has not only developed a fever but is losing all of her baby teeth at an alarming rate, and her mouth and lips have turned black… and all three of these symptoms last a month. In the fall, you send them to live with your parents for a bit while the world around you continues to turn upside down. You can no longer do normal outdoor activities, and stores now cover any open entry with clear plastic strips. It is widely believed that the government does not care about what is happening to Ukraine. One of the best remedies in the community for illnesses, whether they are different from or similar to your daughter’s, is drinking a glass of red wine. What is being described is a story from a Chicago news source in which Tatiana Cehlakhova, a native of Ukraine now living in the windy city, recounts one of the world’s most famous apocalyptic events, the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster of 1986 (1).
The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, when the No. 4 nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, expelling an immense amount of radioactive elements into the atmosphere for ten days (2). After the incident, experts gave the Chernobyl disaster a seven on the INES scale, which ranks just how severe different nuclear incidents are (3, 4). The explosion happened after a poorly executed safety test made the reactor reach temperatures up to 2,600 C (4,280 F)--temperatures that are up to 108% hotter than volcanic lava (5,6). Due to the accident, 237 Chernobyl workers, both on-site and cleanup, were admitted to the hospital with acute radiation sickness (ARS), with 134 cases being confirmed. Of the confirmed cases, 28 were fatal, and 20 more workers have since developed illnesses caused by ARS (2). Along with those cases of ARS, people began dying of brain tumors about a decade later, and many have developed cancer due to the radiation in the atmosphere (7). Not only have humans been affected, but plants and animals have as well. Plants and animals saw mutations, decreases in reproduction rates, increases in death rates, and many anomalies are still being seen today (8).
But with all that, it's still safe to say that nuclear energy doesn't deserve the bad reputation that many give it.
And before you start commenting that it is absolute blasphemy to say such a thing after two full paragraphs about one of the worst manmade disasters in history, allow me to shed some light on the subject...
Why Write About Nuclear Energy?
A Personal Note from Vinny Demme & the Fact that You Are Pretty Average
People tend to dislike many things without really knowing anything about them. Examples of this can be found in everyday life from extreme examples like racism to simple examples like disliking a movie series based on how it looks on the outer surface. But of course, the best way to end such behavior is to learn about it with open eyes and an open mind.
According to a survey by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, while 42% of Americans said that they were “somewhat well informed,” about what nuclear energy is and 21% said they were “very well informed,” there was still a relatively large percentage of 37% stating that they were either “not too well informed,” or “not at all well informed” (26). This only means that you probably have a pretty average opinion no matter what you think, and you more than likely fall into the 49% of Americans that oppose nuclear energy or the 49% of Americans that don’t, percentages given to us by a 2019 Gallup poll (27). To add another personal twist to this, when I asked some family and friends, I was told, “No, I don’t think it’s good… well… I guess I don’t know enough to have an opinion.”
Believe it or not, this essay topic has turned into one of the most exciting things I have ever researched. So interesting and so filled with good information, it was impossible to condense it into one post, which is why there is a part one, in which nuclear energy and how it was discovered is explored, and a part two, which discusses how it is used and some pros and cons to using it. So, strap on your goggles (and your N95 masks perfect for keeping you safe from radiation inhalation) and get ready for a wild ride… beginning at one of the smallest things in the universe, the building block of everything around us, including ourselves…. the atom.
The Complicated Science of Nuclear Energy
PART ONE: THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE UNIVERSE
Everything around you, from the food you eat, the phone or computer you are reading this on, the clothes you wear, and you, yes, you, are made up of the single most important thing in existence: atoms. Simply put, atoms are the building blocks of the universe, and they make up everything besides energy. Made up of a collection of three subatomic particles--protons, neutrons, and electrons-they are so small that they cannot be seen with an electron microscope individually. This is because they are smaller than the wavelengths of light themselves, essentially deeming them invisible (11,12,17).
To put that size into some perspective, you are a collection of roughly 3,720,000,000,000,000,000,000 (three sextillion seven hundred twenty quintillion) atoms, just in your cells. And while atoms are often referred to as the smallest things in the universe, believe it or not, the material that atoms, protons, neutrons, and electrons are made of, like quarks, neutrinos, and quantum foam--the true building block of space and time itself--are so small, their size is immeasurable. ---but before we start messing with the Planck scale and trigger the Deutsch proposition, the most important thing to take out of this is the absolutely unbelievable size of the building blocks of one of the most powerful sources of energy in existence.
But really, what is an atom? What does it look like?
Let’s start with our solar system, which has an estimated 1,200,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (one octodecillion two hundred septendecillion) atoms (28). The center of the universe, while many think it is themselves, is actually the sun. Using its immense gravitational pull, the sun can keep eight planets, Pluto, and about a million asteroids in its orbit. The distance from the sun to Pluto is equivalent to 40 trips between the earth and the sun. It will stay like this until the sun dies out far into the future. In a way, atoms look remarkably just like the solar system with a nucleus made of a cluster of protons and neutrons acting like the sun and a collection of electrons orbiting the nucleus acting like the planets, Pluto, and the asteroid belt. While they do not have a gravitational pull, atoms use binding force to keep electrons orbiting them.
An atom’s weight is based on the number of electrons orbiting the nucleus, and the number of protons in the nucleus determines the number of electrons that will orbit it. For example, hydrogen, the lightest natural element, only has one proton and thus one electron. Uranium, which has 92 protons and 92 electrons, is the heaviest, making it one of the best energy suppliers (18).
But, how is that possible? It is such a tiny thing…
Simply put, atoms need to be split to make energy.
PART TWO: THE TALE OF THE SPLIT URANIUM ATOM
& IT’S TIES TO MISOGYNY AND ANTISEMITISM
When the sun dies of old age, it will go through an entire process of turning into a red giant, putting it at freezing temperatures. However, scientists estimate that will not happen for at least another 4-5 billion years. But let’s imagine a nightmare scenario right now in which an object just as big as the sun comes hurdling at our solar system and crashes right through the middle, taking some planets along with it and forming an entirely new solar system; this is very similar to how scientists split atoms. At a precise speed, scientists can hurdle electrons at a uranium atom, causing it to break into two new atoms--a krypton atom, which has 36 protons and electrons, and a barium atom, which has 56 protons and electrons. Due to it having 96 electrons and protons, a uranium atom’s binding force is fragile (due to so much force being used and strained), causing the split to happen relatively easily. This split, called binary fission, releases a great amount of energy, making it the perfect reaction to supply people with incredible amounts of energy (21).
But who discovered this?
In 1934, two years after the discovery of the neutron, a scientist named Enrico Fermi had the idea, as one usually does, to bombard a uranium atom with neutrons. Bombarding atoms with neutrons was nothing out of the ordinary as it was done in many experiments at the time and still to this day. But Fermi noticed something rather peculiar--a new kind of reaction happened when uranium was bombarded, one that made him think heavier elements were being created. Chemist Ida Noddack, being the innovative and experimental scientist she was, made the point to Fermi that while it seemed like heavier things were being created, things may just be getting lighter. The idea was shelved for a while until a woman named Lise Meitner, the head of a physics section at the Kaiser Williams Institute for Chemistry, began looking into it. Around the same time, she was forced to flee her country to Stockholm to avoid the Nazis due to her Jewish heritage, and she brought only two suitcases with her--one containing the experiment Fermi was working on. She began discussing the experiment with Otto Hahn, another chemist, to figure out what exactly was happening when neutrons were being thrown at uranium. After some work, things were just not adding up. She began discussing the experiments and work with her nephew Otto Frisch, who also shared the opinion that things just didn’t make sense… how could it be possible that smaller things were being created? Of course, they were dedicated to figuring it out.
By watching a water drop stretching out, they could visualize and calculate a uranium nucleus doing the same thing. They discovered that as it was hit with neutrons, it was split in two. A more significant discovery, made by utilizing Einstein’s famous E=mc2, was made as they were able to calculate that the new nuclei would be ⅕ the mass of the original proton and that the split dispelled 200 Megaelectron volts--one Megaelectron volt being a unit of energy equivalent to 1 million electron volts (19). This phenomenon was given the name binary fission in honor of the same term biologist used when describing the splitting of cells. Neil Bohr, the head of the institute Otto Frisch worked at, shared the discovery across the world and was admired by many, especially those who wanted to go to war. Seeing the immense amount of energy fission created, it was decided that it could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction, like atomic bombs.
According to reports, Lise Meitner was disheartened that the discovery she worked so hard on was now being considered to kill others. Also, while Otto Hahn won the 1944 Nobel Peace Prize in chemistry for his work on the project, she has never been properly credited for her work. Even after her contributions to one of the most defining scientific discoveries in history, she is still relatively unknown due to factors like misogyny and antisemitism still seen today (20.)
PART THREE: HOW NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS WORK
So, imagine this same reaction taking place over and over again due to chain reactions in which protons from already split atoms collide with other atoms and the protons from those atoms hit other atoms. A reactor begins its energy production in the “primary system” which begins with a containment structure (24). A containment structure, which is usually a dome-shaped “gas-tight shell or other enclosure” made of steel-reinforced concrete, is used “to confine fission products that otherwise might be released to the atmosphere in the event of an accident” (22).
Inside the containment structure is a smaller structure containing control rods, which are either rods, plates, or tubes created with hafnium or boron, in which fission happens. The control rods are able to absorb the energy from the fission and even limit how much fission happens. They are submerged in coolant in order to prevent them from getting dangerously hot due to the fission inside (23). Due to the heat, the coolant, which is usually water, travels through tubes to the next section of the reactor called the steam generator. Here, the coolant creates steam.
The next section of the nuclear reactor is called the secondary system, which begins with the newly created steam energy causing a metal turbine to spin, creating kinetic energy. The now spinning turbine is connected to a generator which produces electricity and this electricity is disbursed by transformers (23). Underneath the turbine is a condenser, which filters cold water from a nearby water source through pipes underneath the turbines, allowing it to be returned to the steam generator. Thus, the cycle happens again and again (24).
What has been described is actually one of two kinds of nuclear reactors in America: the boiling water reactor. In a pressurized water reactor, the only real difference is that two water circuits are used to make steam. While in a boiling water reactor steam is created by heating the coolant, in a pressurized water reactor, when a reactor core is heated, that heat is used to warm the coolant in the primary reactors to over 300ºC. Under high pressure, this water remains a liquid and the pressurized liquid transfers heat from the primary water circuit to a secondary circuit. This second circuit then converts the liquid water into steam which spins the turbine and is later recycled (25).
And with that, nuclear energy is created! Still, a scientific common consensus as to whether to use nuclear energy widely has yet to been reached. However, that is a topic for next week.
NEXT WEEK:
Now that we have covered how nuclear energy is perceived by the public, how it was discovered, and how it is created, we are ready to get down in the mud and dig our way to the resolution of whether or not nuclear energy is a friend or foe.
Tune in this coming Monday to learn…
How nuclear energy is used
The pros of nuclear energy
The cons of nuclear energy
Whether or not there is a future with or without nuclear energy
To be continued…
Sources & Links...
Chicago Ukrainian family shares first-hand account of Chernobyl | WBEZCHICAGO
The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale | PDF | IAEA
Here’s What Getting Killed by Molten Lava Would Look Like | Newsweek
Higher cancer risk continues after Chernobyl | National Institutes of Health
40 Years After Three Mile Island, Americans Split on Nuclear Power | Gallup
Public opinion on nuclear energy: what influences it | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
There are 37.2 Trillion Cells in Your Body | Smithsonian Magazine
How do we know that things are really made of atoms? | BBC Earth
Appliance of science: what happens when you split an atom? | Irish Examiner
Understand the working of a nuclear power plant | Britannica
Differences between BWRs and PWRs | Kofi Owusu Agyeman | Stanford University
Public opinion on nuclear energy: what influences it | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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