• Question: what is nucleur power commonly used for and what is its main uses

    Asked by to Clara, Simon, Thomas on 20 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Simon Albright

      Simon Albright answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      We have a few nuclear power plants providing us with electricity in England. There are also nuclear reactors on large aircraft carriers and some submarines.

      I think in the future we’ll be seeing more nuclear power as we start running out of fossil fuels as well.

    • Photo: Thomas Elias Cocolios

      Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      Nuclear power is just power. Once it is processed at a power plant, it drops its electrons on the grid and you cannot recognise them from the others. It is then used by everyone, whether at home or in the industry.

      As such, one cannot say that nuclear energy has a specific application with respect to others.

      It has, however, a very important property: continuous output. While you may decide to burn fuel/gas/coal/wood or less to answer the fluctuation in demand (e.g. working day vs. night, summer vs. winter), or while wind power depends on the wind, the nuclear power gives you a continuous output.

      It is good in the sense that it is reliable. It is bad in the sense that you always need to be working at maximum grid-demand level and waste a lot of power in the off times. To remedy this in countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, they actually spend the whole night pumping water up to a lake (instead of wasting that energy) and release it down a chute for hydro power during the day. This sort of ‘natural battery’ has an efficiency of 80% and ensures that you are wasting too much of that power!

      Remember, with energy, the important thing is to diversify and be smart about its use!

    • Photo: Clara Nellist

      Clara Nellist answered on 20 Mar 2014:


      There is one case where the use of nuclear fuel is currently better than regular fossil fuels and this is for nuclear submarines.

      The first nuclear submarine was built in the 1950’s and was called the USS Nautilus. Nuclear power doesn’t require oxygen to work, like fossil fuel powered submarines do. This meant that the nuclear submarine didn’t need to come up to the surface for air, and so it could stay submerged for a really long time (basically for as long as the food lasted). An obvious tactical advantage for the submarine!

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