Do Nuclear reactions result in Global Warming?

Question

According to the equation E=mC2 (Note: '2' stands for 'squared'), mass is changed into energy. This energy will surely heat the Earth up, wouldn't it? I can't find proof for it. Please help.

Answer 1

Any energy liberated by a reaction is indeed heating up the planet.
However, the real problem with global waming is the amplification caused by green house gasses, like methane and CO2, wich traps the heat from the sun. The sun gives about 1300 watt per square metre, over the surface of the planet this is over 10000 times more energy than all the installed power (the sun energy hitting earth is equivalent to 27 gigawatt per person on the whole planet; no one uses that much power). So, doubling our power production would have a negligible effect on global warming, but adding just a bit of gas that traps the huge amount of power that the sun sends will, however, have a huge impact.

Answer 2

Your bonfire heats the Earth but, but its individual contribution is so minute that it is negligible. In an atomic reaction a minute amount of fuel is turned into largely energy, but again, atomic reactions are so rare they are negligible.

What causes climate change is the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, which trap the heat of the sun. Producing energy by means of coal- or oil-fired power stations releases a lot of free carbon into the atmosphere. Nuclear energy can produce the same amount of electricity with far less free carbon.

However, the problem with nuclear energy is the waste produced, which has to be kept isolated for thousands of years before it becomes safe.

So as far as our energy requirements go, neither solution is a good one. At the moment there is no method of meeting our energy needs without climate change or other problems.

Answer 3

At a nuclear plant you see cooling towers. A great deal of heat is produced, and used and the steam is cooled in the towers. Some nonradioactive steam is released. No CO2 is released whch is what global warming is worried about. CO2 holds the heat from the sun in on a cloudy day or night. It usually radiates back out into space. (That is why it gets cold on a clear night but not a cloudy one) Nuclear reactios do produce nuclear waste that i a problem to get rid of. The amout of steam released is minute and adds a little to the rainfall in the area.

Answer 4

No, since you put global warming in capital letters, referring to the current hypothesis being batted around by the media. That hypothesis is that the pollution of the atmosphere by greenhouse gasses will cause the mean temperature of the Earth to increase. Nuclear reactions do not emit greenhouse gasses.

Your conclusion that a forced nuclear reaction will produce heat where none would have been is correct but you're thinking of thermal pollution, not Global Warming.

Answer 5

Yes, but the direct release of energy from either nuclear power or fossil fuels is negligible compared the that received by the earth from the sun. It's the CO2 released from fossils fuels that increases solar heat retention that's the problem..