Nuclear Energy Research

Was looking for some research on nuclear energy since were starting our new project and decided that I should try to get a very good understanding of what exactly nuclear energy is. So I checked out wikipedia's page on nuclear energy. They have a very good description about it and even give you some background knowledge on its history. It was interesting reading about some serious nuclear and radiation accidents that have occured such as the Chernobyl disaster (1986), Fukushima I nuclear accidents (2011), and the Three Mile Island accident (1979). After reading about these accidents I came to the conclusion that I am against nuclear energy because of its dangers. I decided on that, right after reading about the Chernobyl disaster. It was an explosion and fire that released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western Russia and Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima I nuclear incident, which is considered far less serious and has caused no direct deaths). It is really sad to know that In the aftermath of the accident, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness, of whom 31 died within the first three months. Most of these were fire and rescue workers trying to bring the accident under control, who were not fully aware of how dangerous exposure to the radiation in the smoke was. Whereas, in the World Health Organization's 2006 report of the Chernobyl Forum expert group on the 237 emergency workers who were diagnosed with ARS, ARS was identified as the cause of death for 28 of these people within the first few months after the disaster. There were no further deaths identified, in the general population affected by the disaster, as being caused by ARS. Of the 72,000 Russian Emergency Workers being studied, 216 non-cancer deaths are attributed to the disaster, between 1991 and 1998. The latency period for solid cancers caused by excess radiation exposure is 10 or more years; thus at the time of the WHO report being undertaken, the rates of solid cancer deaths were no greater than the general population. Some 135,000 people were evacuated from the area, including 50,000 from Pripyat.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/AlterntiveToNuclearPower