Topic > Nuclear Energy: The Ultimate Solution to the Energy Crisis

"If all the ineffective ideas for solving the energy crisis were put together, they would reach to the moon and back," said Sir David JC McKay, a British physicist, mathematician Regius professor of engineering at the University of Cambridge and chief scientific advisor to the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change, as reported by Quotes Memo, University of Cambridge and Business Green, a green energy company. According to World Bank data, approximately 80% of the world's energy needs are met by fossil fuels. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Fossil fuels emit thousands of millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, which disrupts ecosystems around the world and contributes to the deaths of seven million people every year, say the Energy Information Analysis Center carbon dioxide and the World Health Organization. The current energy crisis is enormous and kills millions of people every year. Nuclear energy is the best solution to satisfy everyone's energy needs without polluting the earth and without making a continuous contribution to its quantity of greenhouse gases. Nuclear reactors are power sources that produce electricity when unstable isotopes of heavy elements (e.g. actinium, thorium, protactinium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium, etc.) split, releasing neutrons and enormous amounts of heat energy. To ensure that the reaction is safe and controlled, coolants and neutron moderators, usually in the form of water or graphite, and control rods are added. It is important to note that the preferred type of nuclear reactor is the thorium molten salt reactor. According to data from the non-profit organization World Nuclear, Thorium Energy World and Forbes, the Chinese are investing heavily in this. Thorium fuel is advantageous for many reasons. Thorium's preferred isotope, 232Th, makes up more than 99% of the earth's naturally occurring thorium, says the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Institute of Health. Furthermore, thorium is three times more abundant than uranium. This makes mining and refining fuel much easier because thorium mining is three times more efficient than uranium mining, and the mined thorium does not need to be enriched in fissile material (material capable of supporting a nuclear fission reaction). Even thorium does not break down into weapons-grade nuclear waste. Thorium nuclear waste remains radioactive only 5% of the time. Uranium nuclear waste remains radioactive. Current uranium reactors use between 95% and 97% 238U, which is radioactive but not fissile. The remaining 3%-5% is 235U, which is fissile. This means that only a small part of the fuel is used. The remaining 238U is enriched into 239U during the reaction and then becomes 239Pu, which is nuclear waste that can be used in weapons. Thorium doesn't have this problem. Thorium is not fissile. It transforms into 239Th when it combines with another neutron, which then decays into 233U, a fissile isotope of uranium. This process removes 238U and 239U from the equation and ensures that almost all products are safe, fissile materials. 233U is used in a fission reactor and splits into even more stable elements. Thorium reactors eliminate almost all nuclear waste production and eliminate the possibility of it becoming nuclear material in nuclear weapons. Another important detail for the future is the type of reactor. The molten salt reactor uses molten salt as a depressurized coolant anddissolves nuclear fuel in the coolant salt. This prevents nuclear fusion because the system is already liquid. This also prevents explosions because the coolant is kept at the same pressure as the atmosphere. If the reaction gets too hot, it forces the coolant mixture to expand, pushing the dissolved fuel particles away from each other, slowing and cooling the fluid.reaction. This proved so effective that a control rod (used to mitigate reactions) was removed from an MSR while operating at full power and the MSR increased its power output by 12.5% ​​and then stabilized from alone, without any intervention from the operator. Thorium, when combined with the many benefits of an MSR, is the most optimal nuclear energy system achievable. All nuclear facilities proposed here would use TMSR, greatly reducing the amount and risk associated with nuclear waste. Because of its high efficiency, cleanliness and safety, and the overwhelming incompetence of renewable energy sources, nuclear power produced by TMSR is the best way to meet everyone's energy needs without relentlessly increasing the carbon footprint. An unfortunately common misconception about nuclear energy is that it is inefficient. Nuclear power with traditional uranium reactors requires a lot of extraction and refining of the fuel, which reduces efficiency and poses a large health risk to humans working with uranium. This is not the case with thorium reactors. Thorium is three times more common than uranium, and thorium is more efficient to mine than uranium, as stated by a report by Jason Ting of Stanford University. Thorium mining occurs in open pits, which do not require ventilation, while uranium mines are closed and have dangerous levels of radon gas. This means that not only is it more efficient to mine thorium, it is also safer. The energy density of thorium is extraordinary, equal to 79,420,000 MJ/kg according to What Is Nuclear engineers. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says total U.S. primary energy consumption in 2018 per person per year was 309 million British thermal units. This means that a single kilogram of thorium fuel is enough energy to meet all of an American's energy needs for three lifetimes. Thorium reactors are a big improvement over uranium reactors, but they are also much better than renewable energy. According to solar energy company GreenMatch, as of 9/13/19, solar panels are between 15% and 22% efficient. Wind turbines do much better, averaging between 35% and 45%, says Dr. Richard M Andres, professor emeritus at Saint Louis University. Nuclear power surpasses both, with the efficiency of a molten salt reactor hovering between 48% and 59%, making it three to four times more efficient than solar power and up to 168% more energy efficient wind power. The difference between the efficiency of nuclear and wind energy may seem insignificant, but a nuclear reactor produces maximum energy at least 91% of the time it is in operation, that is, 24/7, made exception for a pause every two years for refueling, as stated by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Wind turbines rely entirely on wind, a source of energy that is neither constant nor powerful. Wind turbines only produce an average energy output about 40% of the time, and produce little or no energy the other 60% of the time, as reported by the nonprofit National Wind Watch. The average total capacity factor (percentage of time a wind turbine standsproducing peak power) of wind turbines in 2018 was 37.4%. A solar system is certainly no better and, according to the Australian company SolarQuotes, on average only produces peak power reliably for about four hours a day. This means that a nuclear plant produces peak power three times more often than a wind turbine and 5.5 times more often than a solar plant. Simply put, nuclear power plants are extraordinarily efficient, much more so than renewables, due to their high generating capacity factors, high energy density fuel, and high operational efficiency. Not only are nuclear power plants extraordinarily efficient, they also produce exorbitant amounts of energy. . MSRs have already demonstrated the ability to produce at least nine megawatts. MSRs are being developed rapidly, and current plans call for the release of a one-gigawatt demonstration plant. California is commonly considered the energy leader in the United States and, according to the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems, has 4.2 gigawatts of electric storage on the grid. This means that just four reactors of this size are enough to supply California's entire storage network. Not only can they provide storage for California's grid, they can also operate California's entire electric grid, which has a capacity of 76,414 megawatts according to the 2017 California Electricity Profile. A one GWt reactor could provide at least 13 times the capacity of the California network. Most nuclear power plants have two reactors, so even if an MSR only reached 4% of the one GWt goal, it would still be able to power all of California. Solar doesn't even come close to this goal. As stated in an article by Solar Energy Research and Power Analyst Ben Zientara, the average 2018 solar panel produces a maximum of 320 watts of electricity in perfect weather. To meet the capacity of California's grid, 238,793,750 solar panels would be needed. The largest solar farm in the United States, Solar Star, has a maximum output of 579 megawatts, solar energy companies Alba Energy and SunPower say. California's grid would require an additional 131 solar farms the size of Solar Star. Due to the huge amount of solar panels and land needed for everything to work, solar power isn't feasible here. Wind energy doesn't fare much better. According to the European Wind Energy Association, a single wind turbine produces 2.5-3 megawatts of energy at its peak power capacity. Given that it is at this power level only 37.4% of the time and creates almost no power 60% of the time, 2.5-3 megawatts of energy is much higher than typical production. A wind turbine that uses these statistics (and rounds up the peak power time to 40%) will average between 1 and 1.2 megawatts of power output. This means that approximately 70,000 wind turbines would have to continue spinning at typical power output 100% of the time to achieve the same generation as California's grid. This will not and cannot happen. The nuclear option is the only one among wind, solar and nuclear energy capable of creating high and constant energy production in 100% of cases (with the exception of refueling, which only happens once every two years). The common problem with nuclear energy is nuclear proliferation. No one wants more nuclear weapons, especially not in the hands of nations that do not currently have nuclear technologies. Michael Shellenberger, a 2008 Time Magazine environmental hero and founder of Environmental Progress, stated plainly that “if there was any chance that a.