The Impact of Nuclear Power

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Nuclear power, the use of exothermic nuclear processes to produce an enormous amount of electricity and heat for domestic, medical, military and industrial purposes i.e. “By the end of 2012 2346.3 kilowatt hours (KWh) of electricity was generated by nuclear reactors around the world” (International atomic energy agency Vienna, 2013, p.13). However, with that been said it is evident that the process of generating electricity from a nuclear reactor has numerous health and environmental safety issues.

The impact of nuclear power on the modern world has improved Various sectors of the economy and society .i.e. Food and Agriculture, Insect control, Food Preservation, Water Resources, Military, Medicine, Research and Industry. “In 1911 George de Hevesy conducted the first application of a radioisotope. At the time de Hevesy was a young Hungarian student working in Manchester with naturally radioactive materials. Not having much money he lived in modest accommodation and took his meals with his landlady. He began to suspect that some of the meals that appeared regularly might be made from leftovers from the preceding days or even weeks, but he could never be sure. To try and confirm his suspicions de Hevesy put a small amount of radioactive material into the remains of a meal. Several days later when the same dish was served again he used a simple radiation detection instrument - a gold leaf electroscope - to check if the food was radioactive. It was, and de Hevesy's suspicions were confirmed.

History has forgotten the landlady, but George de Hevesy went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1943 and the Atoms for Peace award in 1959. His was the first use of radioactive tracers - now routine in environmental science” (World Nuclea...

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...e, World Scientific, London.

Thébaud-Mony, A. & ebrary, I. 2011, Nuclear servitude: subcontracting and health in the French civil nuclear industry,Baywood Pub, Amityville, N.Y.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. (Last updated on 3/20/2013). Radioactive Waste Disposal: An Environmental Perspective [EPA 402-K-94-001]. Available: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/radwaste/. Last accessed 25th April 2014.

World Nuclear Association. (2014). Nuclear Power in the World Today.Available: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Nuclear-Power-in-the-World-Today/. Last accessed 25th April 2014.

World Nuclear Association. (Updated October 2013). Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors. Available: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Safety-of-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/. Last accessed 25th April 2014.

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