Nuclear engineering

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Nuclear engineering is the engineering discipline concerned with designing and applying systems that utilize the energy released by nuclear processes. Furthermore, it is a declination of nucleonics, which is the application of nuclear physics to engineering (whence nuclear engineering) and other sciences (e.g., astrophysics and geophysics). The most prominent application of nuclear engineering is the generation of electricity. Worldwide, some 439 nuclear reactors in 31 countries generate 10 percent of the world's energy through nuclear fission. In the future, it is expected that nuclear fusion will add another nuclear means of generating energy. Both reactions make use of the nuclear binding energy released when atomic nucleons are either separated (fission) or brought together (fusion). The energy available is given by the binding energy curve, and the amount generated is much greater than that generated through chemical reactions. Fission of 1 gram of uranium yields as much energy as...

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