Nuclear Power Most of the world’s electricity is generated by either thermal or hydroelectric power plants. Thermal power plants use fuel to boil water which makes steam. The steam turns turbines that generate electricity. Hydroelectric power plants use the great force of rushing water from a dam or a waterfall to turn the turbines. The majority of thermal power plants burn fossil fuels because thermal power plants are cheaper to maintain and have to …showed first 75 words of 360 total…

…showed last 75 words of 360 total…on and is called a chain reaction. (World Book vol. 14, 588) The fission process is used to create heat, which boils water inside the nuclear reactor. The steam that boiling the water makes is used to turn turbines, which in turn, generate electricity. Fission happens inside a carefully monitored nuclear reactor, when being used in a nuclear power plant. The fission process that nuclear power plants use spends approximately 30,000 tons of highly radioactive waste a year.