<body> NYGH 304 Physics SIA: Nuclear Energy-
...Group Members

Chin Kai Qing(7)
Emily Chua(8)
Lei Simin(16)
Loh Ai Leng(21)

...Wish List

That Mrs Chua would love our blog
That Mrs Chua would give us a high grade for this SIA
That Mrs Chua would stay young,healthy and ever so beautiful forever

...Other beauties

ICE ANGEL
 XIAXUE
 SASSYJAN

...EXIBITIONS

  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008

    •

    ...BEAUTITALK


    insert tagboard here
     

    ...Lost in beauty

    layout design, coding,  photo-editing,

    by ice angel



         Brushes- 1| 2

    Friday, February 29, 2008


    In this physics SIA, our group, comprising of me, Kaiqing, Emily, Simin and Aileng, have decided to touch on the "green" issue of nuclear power plants.

    Nuclear power plants have been proved to be a better source of energy as they are more environmental-friendly towards the environment, emitting lesser carbon dioxide and contaminants into the environment than coal and oil burning plants. In comparison with coal and oil burning plants, nuclear power plants also require lesser fuel than coal and oil burning plants. Earth itself has limited fuel resources thus in this case, nuclear power plants will be a better choice than coal and oil burning plants.

    Nuclear power plants, unlike coal and oil burning plants, make use of uranium isotopes (uranium-238, uranium-235 and uranium-234), allowing the isotopes to undergo nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to release nuclear energy, when the atoms of the isotopes split. We will be going into greater depth of what are nuclear fusion and fission later.
    Uranium-238 has an extremely long half-life, 4.5 billion years, and is still present in fairly large quantities [1]. This further supports the fact that nuclear power plants are more reliable than coal and oil burning plants as uranium-238 is still present in large quantities yet the Earth's fossil fuel resources are running out soon, or rather limited.

    Now, many countries are relying more on nuclear power plants, depending on nuclear energy produced to generate electricity than the energy produced by coal and oil burning. These countries include China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, USA, Vietnam and other countries [2].

    However, nuclear power plants also have their negative points. For instance, in 1986, one of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl released radiation into the environment causing a total of 100,000+ deaths and brought many other sufferings to the people living nearby the area. This death toll was much more than the number of people killed in the Titanic incident in 1912. Such a disaster has left many people suffering from its effects. This would also be what we are touching in our SIA, the "green" issue of nuclear power plants.

    Other than the basics and issue, we will also be covering the physics principles involved in nuclear energy, which include nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. Further details on the two principles will be updated later

    We hope that you have a clear idea of what we are working on. More updates will be posted.
    Hope that you will have a clearer view of nuclear power plants and that you will like and enjoy this blog created specially for our SIA. :P


    [1] HowStuffWorks, INC. (1998-2008) Howstuffworks "How Nuclear Power Works" [on-line] http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power.htm (26-02-08)
    [2] Australian Uranium Association, World Nuclear Assocation (December 2007) World Power Reactors [on-line] http://www.uic.com.au/nip07.htm (13-03-08)


    ---Kaiqing 304 N.Y.G.H

    the beauty exposed ;