Researched
Nuclear Power
Splitting uranium delivers heat for electricity - about 8.5% of world power in 2025.
Open in the interactive tree →After Fermi's first reactor (1942), the first nuclear power plant fed a grid in June 1954 at Obninsk in the Soviet Union; Calder Hall in Britain followed in 1956 as the first at industrial scale. One gram of uranium-235 releases as much energy in fission as roughly three tonnes of coal. Nuclear is today one of the largest low-emission power sources but struggles with cost, construction time and waste disposal.
Prerequisites
- Thermodynamics1824
- Electrification1882
- Steam Turbine1884Nuclear plants turn reactor heat into electricity with steam turbines
- Nuclear Physics1938
- First Nuclear Reactor (CP-1)1942Fermi's pile showed controlled fission works; power reactors adapted it
- Manhattan Project1942-1945Civil nuclear power grew from wartime reactors and the reactor know-how of the Project
- Nuclear-Powered Submarine1954The pressurised-water reactor of civilian plants came from the naval programme
Unlocks
- Nuclear Accidents & Safety Turn1979-1986
- New Reactors & SMRs2020–2026
- Beyond chemical rocketsopen
- Final disposal of nuclear wasteopen