Is Nuclear Energy Renewable or Nonrenewable?
High oil prices and concern over global warming have renewed interest in nuclear energy, which, as a means of generating commercial electricity, had been moribund in the United States since the 1970s. About 15 percent of the world’s electricity comes from nuclear power. Some countries, such as France and Japan, are heavily dependent upon it. Nuclear energy is even being marketed as an environmentally friendly source of renewable energy. Unfortunately, that claim is only half right. Identification Nuclear power is generated inside a plant called a reactor. The power source is the heat produced by a controlled nuclear fission chain reaction, of either uranium or plutonium. This reaction involves an element such as uranium or plutonium being struck by a neutron and splitting. The result of the fission of these large atoms is the creation of new, smaller atoms as byproducts, radiation and more neutrons. Those neutrons speed out and strike other uranium/plutonium atoms, creating a chain rea
