Aaron Kreider

Semih Eser
Reflective Essay
16 February 2016
A Nuclear Kind of Power
Growing up in Martinsburg, Pennsylvania, I never saw where my
electricity came from. In fact, the first time I ever saw a nuclear
reactor, it was on an episode of The Simpsons. The whole thing
seemed extremely scary and reactive. When one thinks of a Nuclear
power plant, they tend to think of mutation, meltdowns, and
Chernobyl. The first time I ever saw a nuclear power plant in real life, I
was in awe. It was this gigantic hourglass figure with lots of thick white
steam billowing out of the top. I didnt even know that there were
actually nuclear power plants in the United States!
It wasnt until last year, however, that I learned that nuclear
power is actually an extremely powerful, clean, and efficient form of
power. It was my EGEE 102 course, and on the first day we were
talking about clean sources of energy. One student called out Nuclear
Energy! and I rolled my eyes. Wasnt nuclear energy supposed to be a
bad thing? On the contrary, that class taught me all of the great things
nuclear power can do for the world!
Smil first mentions nuclear power at Location 172 (I have the ebook version of Smils book). According to Smil, a very small amount of

Uranium 235about one kilogramreleases the same amount of

energy as 190 tonnes of crude oil. This ultimately prevents us from
putting an extra 2.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere!
So how exactly does nuclear power work? Well, Im not going to
try and claim to be an expert, but Ive done a little bit of research. Ive
always wondered why so much smoke (or steam, really) comes out of
the nuclear power plant. Well, the primary function of a nuclear power
plant is boiling water to generate that steam. The steam then turns
turbines that subsequently produce electricity. So how does the water
boil? What exactly in that hourglass gets the water hot enough to
produce that much steam?
Through a reaction called fission, the water is heated to create
steam. But what is fission? Fission is the process of breaking down the
nuclei of the Uranium 235 that I mentioned earlier. As the nuclei break
down, they release neutrons, which cause more nuclei to break down
and create a self-sustaining reaction (hence, why its called a nuclear
reactor). This breaking down of uranium 235 creates a lot of heat. So
much heat, that it is able to generate about 20% of the United States
electricity.
In my opinion, more should be done to increase the amount of
nuclear power plants in the United States and all over the world. It is
clean, safe (within reason), and sustainable! While humanity has seen

the negatives of what nuclear power can do, I dont think that we have
been exposed to what all it can do for society. Clean, sustaining energy
can be the answer to quite a few of the worlds problems. Nuclear
energy is the best of both worlds: clean, sustainable, efficient and
profitable.

Works Cited
"Mega Uranium Mining & Exploration in Australia: How Clean Is Nuclear
Power." Mega Uranium Mining & Exploration in Australia: How
Clean Is Nuclear Power. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.

"How Nuclear Reactors Work." - Nuclear Energy Institute. N.p., n.d.

Web. 16 Feb. 2016.

"How Nuclear Power Works." How Stuff Works. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb.
2016.

Smil, Vaclav. Energy: A Beginner's Guide. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.

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