Savannah Vidal 03/18/2013 Period 8 Nuclear Energy Nuclear energy, or atomic energy is the energy outcome of nuclear reactions: "changes in the structure of the nuclei of the atom.  The experimenting all began on December 2, 1942 when Enrico Fermi led a team to test on a famous "pile  of what could later in history be applied to produce power. When people saw what this testing had come to, they realized that we could potentially use nuclear energy to power submarines, and even to give cities electricity. Then in August of 1945, our country used atomic bombs in Japan over 140,000 people. Seven years later, a hydrogen bomb was exploded for testing, which was huge- huge to science, and literally ¦ huge. Then later on in February of 1956 a nuclear power plant was opened in England. There are few advantages of using atomic energy in our everyday lives. For one, we wouldn't be limited to our use. We're going to run out of coal and fuel soon. Nuclear power plants will still be able to create energy for us when we run out of the limited energy sources we have. Nuclear power plants don't need a lot of fuel compared to fossil fuels. There would also be less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere with the nuclear power plants, and to operate the plants would be relatively inexpensive. It would be incredible also that nuclear energy can produce energy great enough to maintain high-maintenance things like heavy manufacturing and whole cities. There are many downfalls for using nuclear energy. The construction of the power plants would be expensive, and it would be long term. There are very high, dangerous risks if there is an accident: Not just physically to people, but we would also be a huge target for terrorist attacks if we used nuclear energy. It's a centralized source of power meaning that it would be very hard to maintain. In the case of an accident, it would be very hard to put anybody at blame because of waivers requiri