Tremendous amounts of energy run machines to make consumer products. A great deal of energy is used for transportation. The average person uses about eight times as much energy as could be produced by muscle power alone. It is a known fact that the average person in the United States expends more than ten times the energy of an average person in most other parts of the world. The long upward trend in global commercial energy production and consumption continued through 1993, the most recent year for which data are available.
Energy use creates serious problems.
They include the depletion of fuel reserves and environmental effects. Energy depletion has occurred partially due to the increased standard of living, however, a major decrease is markedly noticed in the industrial development of manufactured goods. Alternative sources of energy must be considered, since fossil fuel reserves will be used up fairly soon. It is necessary to develop new ways of obtaining energy and one such method is nuclear fission, in which nuclear plants work to split atoms in certain radioactive elements. The process of nuclear fission releases energy, and kinetic energy of nuclear fission fragments produces heat, which can be used in making steam for generating electricity.