Did you know?
There are lots of surprising and encouraging facts about nuclear energy that make it a clear choice to help meet our energy needs in the future. Here are just a few:
- There are 104 commercial nuclear power plants producing 20 percent of the electricity in the United States. They are located at 64 sites in 31 states.
- Nuclear power plants provide low-cost, predictable power at stable prices and are essential in maintaining the reliability of the U.S. electric power system.
- Nuclear energy has one of the lowest production costs – approximately 1.7 cents per kilowatt-hour.
- The energy in one uranium fuel pellet – the size of the tip of your little finger – is the equivalent of 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal, or 149 gallons of oil.
- Nuclear energy supplies electricity each year to serve 60 million homes.
- Nuclear energy is by far the nation’s largest source of electricity that does not produce greenhouse gases, providing 73 percent of the electricity from all carbon-free sources, including hydroelectric, wind and solar.
- The use of nuclear energy helps to keep the air clean, preserve the Earth’s climate, avoid ground-level ozone formation and prevent acid rain.
- Nuclear energy has the smallest environmental impact of any greenhouse gas-free electricity source. For example, a wind farm would need 235 square miles to produce the same amount of electricity as a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant.
- There are nearly 100 different nuclear medicine imaging procedures available today. An estimated 10 to 12 million nuclear medicine imaging and therapeutic procedures are performed each year in the United States.
- You would have to live near a nuclear power plant for over 2,000 years to get the same amount of radiation exposure that you get from a single diagnostic medical x-ray.