Three Mile Island, Fukushima, Chernobyl. While nuclear accidents are extremely rare, they loom large in the public conscience, making nuclear energy a hard sell for many constituents, despite its numerous benefits. Nuclear energy results in zero carbon emissions and is massively efficient, making it a potentially viable solution for combating climate change in our modern world, where energy demand is always growing. Yes, there are drawbacks. The astronomically expensive , not to mention hazardous, cleanup and maintenance of nuclear waste is a big one, but possibly even bigger is the public perception that the production of nuclear energy is fundamentally dangerous. Soon, that could all change thanks to a new development in fuel for nuclear reactors. “Commercial reactors have used the same fuel for decades: small pellets of uranium dioxide stacked inside long cylindrical rods made of a zirconium alloy,” reports Scientific American. “Zirconium allows the neutrons generated from […]