Why do nuclear power plants produce so much energy?

Question

If nuclear power plants boil water to turn a turbine to make energy then why do they make more energy than a coal power plant that does the same?

In: 28

Answer 1

Nuclear reactors are using fissile fuel (uranium) that is able to be split into other elements. When this split happens, the mass of the resulting elements is slightly smaller than the mass of the original uranium.

The missing mass has actually been converted directly into energy by breaking the atomic bonds that were holding the original atoms of uranium together.

This works according to Einstein’s famous equation .. **E = M x C****^(2)**

In this equation, **C** is the speed of light .. which is a very big number. Squaring it gives you a very very big number.

So nuclear reactors can take a very small amount of uranium mass (**M**) and convert it into an extremely large amount of energy (**E**).