How do nuclear power plants work? - M. V. Ramana and Sajan Saini

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-are-the-challenges-of-nuclear-power-m-v-ramana-and-sajan-saini Our ability to mine great amounts of energy from uranium nuclei has led some...

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On a December afternoon in Chicago during the middle of World War II,scientists cracked open the nucleus at the center of the uranium atomand turned nuclear mass into energy over and over again.They did this by creating for the first timea chain reaction inside a new engineering marvel:the nuclear reactor.Since then, the ability to mine great amounts of energy from uranium nucleihas led some to bill nuclear poweras a plentiful utopian source of electricity.A modern nuclear reactor generates enough electricity from one kilogram of fuelto power an average American household for nearly 34 years.But rather than dominate the global electricity market,nuclear power has declined from an all-time high of 18% in 1996to 11% today.And it's expected to drop further in the c...