Nuclear power

The electricity produced by one pound of uranium is equivalent to the power generated by roughly 3 million pounds of coal.

Energy usage

• France derives 78% of its electricity from nuclear power. By contrast, nuclear power supplies 20% of electricity in the United States, and about 30% in Japan.
• The top 3 producers of nuclear power are US, France, and Japan, respectively.

Nuclear power plants

• The first civilian nuclear power plant was commissioned in 1954 in the former Soviet Union.
  • It continued operating wihtout incident through 2002.

Nuclear accidents

• The International Nuclear Event Scale rates nuclear accidents on a scale of 0 to 7, with 0 meaning "no safety significance" and 7 meaning "major accident."
• The Chernobyl incident in 1986 has been the only one classified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a 7.
• An explosion at Kyshtym, Russia, in 1957 was rated a 6 ("serious accident").
• The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 was rated a 5 ("accident with wider [than local] consequences").

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