Energy & Green Tech
The Belgian government tentatively committed itself Thursday to phasing out the country's existing nuclear power plants by 2025 while using gas as a bridge toward sustainable energy sources and possible new-technology nuclear ...
Dec 23, 2021
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Business
An electricity market analysis found adding battery storage to enhance grid reliability caused power generation markets to favor coal over natural gas.
Apr 11, 2024
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Energy & Green Tech
A few years ago, several nuclear reactors in the United States were facing the possibility of unforeseen shutdowns in the wake of disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The 2011 accident prompted worldwide scrutiny ...
Mar 12, 2020
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4
Engineering
The U.S. Department of Energy reported a major scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion science in December 2022. For the first time, more energy was released from a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it.
Jun 28, 2023
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24
Energy & Green Tech
An unassuming pile of black graphite bricks containing uranium became known famously as Chicago Pile 1, the world's first human-created, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Eighty years later, nuclear scientists continue ...
Dec 2, 2022
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11
Engineering
With no-wind-turbine signs on roadsides next to cornfields, it's hardly surprising that land use is a thorny issue for renewables. But how much land do different zero-carbon technologies really use?
Oct 6, 2022
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23
Engineering
Unexpected pipeline failures can lead to leaks that pollute the environment and compromise public safety, thereby underscoring the importance of accurate, real-time pipeline monitoring. Pipelines on naval ships that are a ...
Mar 29, 2023
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24
Engineering
A new self-healing fungi concrete, co-developed by researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York, could help repair cracks in aging concrete permanently, and help save America's crumbling infrastructure.
Jan 17, 2018
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10
Engineering
Have you ever wondered what a spacecraft and a pacemaker have in common? Both are powered by plutonium-238 (238Pu), a versatile isotope, known for its ideal heating properties.
Jun 4, 2024
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1
Robotics
Deep underground in eastern France, a four-legged bundle of energy named Scar steps gingerly through vast caverns, loaded with sensors for taking measures in places where humans might fear to tread.
May 12, 2021
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A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter; a modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than a thousand kilograms can produce an explosion comparable to the detonation of more than a billion kilograms of conventional high explosive. Even small nuclear devices can devastate a city. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction, and their use and control has been a major aspect of international policy since their debut.
In the history of warfare, only two nuclear weapons have been detonated offensively, both near the end of World War II. The first was detonated on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The second was detonated three days later when the United States dropped a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" on the city of Nagasaki, Japan. These bombings resulted in the immediate deaths of around 120,000 people (mostly civilians) from injuries sustained from the explosion and acute radiation sickness, and even more deaths from long-term effects of ionizing radiation. The use of these weapons was and remains controversial. (See atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a full discussion.)
Since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing purposes and demonstration purposes. The only countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons—and that acknowledge possessing such weapons—are (chronologically) the United States, the Soviet Union (succeeded as a nuclear power by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is also widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it does not acknowledge having them. (For more information on these states' nuclear programs, as well as other states that formerly possessed nuclear weapons or are suspected of seeking nuclear weapons, see list of states with nuclear weapons.)
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
