Nuclear Plant (CTP2)

Nuclear Plant
Requires	Nuclear Power
Production cost	4500
Upkeep	12
Effects
+20% Production

Nuclear Plant is a building in Call to Power II.

Gameplay

Nuclear Plants provide enormous amounts of power for Cities. The liabilities associated with them are an increase in Pollution and a risk of environmentally catastrophic meltdown. Nuclear Plants create radioactive waste by-products, which are costly to properly dispose of.

Great Library entry

In 1938, the German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission. By bombarding uranium with neutrons in an attempt to create elements heavier than uranium, they unwittingly induced a fission reaction. When a particle such as a neuron hit the nucleus of a uranium atom, it caused it to split into two fission fragments of roughly the same atomic composition. This process released a large amount of thermal energy, as well as gamma rays and a few free neutrons, which in turn fissioned other uranium nuclei. This series of fissions constituted a chain reaction, which yielded a constant supply of nuclear energy. If these reactions could be controlled, scientists theorized, then one would have a supply of energy much cleaner than conventional oil, gas and coal-burning power plants. In the late 1950s an early '60s, a few commercial nuclear power plants were built. The most successful of these used water as a cooling system for reactors. The demand for nuclear plants skyrocketed in the mid-1960s and early '70s but dropped off in the later part of the decade, due to a decline in need, coupled with public fears about the danger of nuclear meltdown.

In a nuclear reactor, the chain reaction produced a tremendous amount of radiation and thermal energy. Some of the thermal energy was used to heat water and create steam. The steam drove a turbine, and the turbine's mechanical energy was converted to energy by means of a generator. Despite the relative cleanliness of nuclear power, nuclear meltdowns at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979 and at Chernobyl, Soviet Union in 1986 became iconic reminders of the catastrophic power of uncontrolled fission reactions. Despite these incidents, nuclear plants continued to operate in Europe, Japan and various other countries for many years.