S23-122, Nuclear Power: The Hope and the Fear

About 10% of all electricity generated in the world comes from nuclear power plants. But nuclear power is very controversial. How do nuclear power plants produce electricity? How long have they been around? What are the dangers and problems that make nuclear power so controversial? What caused the well-known disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima? What is the difference between power generated by nuclear fission and nuclear fusion? Is there a future for nuclear power, or would it be wiser to start phasing it out? We’ll explore these and other questions in this course.
Please Note: All classes in this series start at 2 pm instead of 1:30 in order to give the instructor time to get from his other volunteer teaching job to teach us
Presenter: Mark Dodge
Mark Dodge received his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California Berkeley and his master’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Virginia. He worked as an engineering scientist at IBM and taught high school physics for 24 years.
LLI Coordinator: Christina Cinalli