Jacob D., journalist

Although most Americans agree that the government should do more to protect the environment, there is debate about which energy sources should replace fossil fuels. One contender is nuclear power, which relies on the process of nuclear fission to heat water, which creates steam that interacts with a turbine to generate electricity. Nuclear fission involves a neutron colliding with an atom of uranium in order to split it into two new atoms. Once the uranium is split into those two atoms, neutrons are released that can collide with and split new uranium atoms. This results in what is called a chain reaction, where each uranium atom being split results in others being split in the same way. This process releases large amounts of energy in the form of heat, which allows for the aforementioned method of producing electricity.