Nuclear Power In Australia
Nuclear Power Debate
Year 11 Physics
Gurjyot Singh
Australia currently has no nuclear facilities generating electricity, which is forcing the Australian Government to look towards nuclear energy as a great alternative. Nuclear energy is a growing controversial topic in Australia; because the demands of utilizing electricity are increasing rapidly. According to a recent study, Australia has 23% of the world’s uranium deposits and is the second largest producer of uranium. Which leads to one question, why isn’t Australia using nuclear power plants, when 23% of uranium deposits can be used to produce enough electricity to last several centuries. Well this is why I am here today, to answer this “heavily …show more content…
This report will therefore create an argument for or against the uses of nuclear energy.
Firstly, let’s start off with nuclear technology. Since the discovery of nuclear technology its applications have been and continue to be numerous. Among them, the most known is the production of electricity. However, nuclear technology has many applications in other fields (Foro Nuclear, 2015).
Nuclear technology can be used in a variety of areas ranging from: nuclear medicine, and nuclear reactors to nuclear weapons. Some examples of technologies include smoke detectors and gun sights. Many of these applications have evolved in: industry, hydrology, food and agriculture, art, medicine, science, cosmology and space exploration (Foro Nuclear, 2015). For example in medicine X rays, MRI’s and CAT scans allow doctors or surgeons to locate problems within the human body from minor issue to big issues like diseases and cancer. Without nuclear technology the world wouldn’t have been so advanced like it is …show more content…
The process can be seen in figure 15. Figure 15, nuclear fusion
In addition, nuclear energy is a form of energy that can be harnessed from an atomic nucleus, and can be released by radioactive decay, fusion, or fission. This source of energy makes use of the power of nuclear reactions to release energy for the use of electricity, heating, and also propulsion.
Nuclear energy is released when materials like uranium, is concentrated so that nuclear fission occurs in a chain reaction. The chain reaction releases energy that can be utilized to heat up water, and the steam from the heated water can then be used to turn a turbine, and can be then converted into electrical energy.
Now let’s move onto half-lives. Half-live is where the nuclei of a radioactive sample are halved after a certain characteristic period. Different radioactive isotopes have different half-lives. For example, the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,715 years, but the half-life of francium-223 is just 20 minutes. The fastest way to determine the half-life of a nuclei is using a graph, the graph in figure 16 shows the count rate against
Year 11 Physics
Gurjyot Singh
Australia currently has no nuclear facilities generating electricity, which is forcing the Australian Government to look towards nuclear energy as a great alternative. Nuclear energy is a growing controversial topic in Australia; because the demands of utilizing electricity are increasing rapidly. According to a recent study, Australia has 23% of the world’s uranium deposits and is the second largest producer of uranium. Which leads to one question, why isn’t Australia using nuclear power plants, when 23% of uranium deposits can be used to produce enough electricity to last several centuries. Well this is why I am here today, to answer this “heavily …show more content…
This report will therefore create an argument for or against the uses of nuclear energy.
Firstly, let’s start off with nuclear technology. Since the discovery of nuclear technology its applications have been and continue to be numerous. Among them, the most known is the production of electricity. However, nuclear technology has many applications in other fields (Foro Nuclear, 2015).
Nuclear technology can be used in a variety of areas ranging from: nuclear medicine, and nuclear reactors to nuclear weapons. Some examples of technologies include smoke detectors and gun sights. Many of these applications have evolved in: industry, hydrology, food and agriculture, art, medicine, science, cosmology and space exploration (Foro Nuclear, 2015). For example in medicine X rays, MRI’s and CAT scans allow doctors or surgeons to locate problems within the human body from minor issue to big issues like diseases and cancer. Without nuclear technology the world wouldn’t have been so advanced like it is …show more content…
The process can be seen in figure 15. Figure 15, nuclear fusion
In addition, nuclear energy is a form of energy that can be harnessed from an atomic nucleus, and can be released by radioactive decay, fusion, or fission. This source of energy makes use of the power of nuclear reactions to release energy for the use of electricity, heating, and also propulsion.
Nuclear energy is released when materials like uranium, is concentrated so that nuclear fission occurs in a chain reaction. The chain reaction releases energy that can be utilized to heat up water, and the steam from the heated water can then be used to turn a turbine, and can be then converted into electrical energy.
Now let’s move onto half-lives. Half-live is where the nuclei of a radioactive sample are halved after a certain characteristic period. Different radioactive isotopes have different half-lives. For example, the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,715 years, but the half-life of francium-223 is just 20 minutes. The fastest way to determine the half-life of a nuclei is using a graph, the graph in figure 16 shows the count rate against