ABSTRACT
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, our society has regularly used energy that was accumulated and stored for millennia: Fossil fuels are substances with very high quantities of stored chemical energy, which we now use to satisfy our primary energy needs. Nuclear energy is the energy that has been stored in the nuclei of atoms since the beginnings of the universe. It is apparent from the recent trends of energy consumption that fossil fuels are depleting at an alarming rate and will likely be exhausted by the end of the twenty-first century (Michaelides, E.E., Alternative Energy Sources, Springer, Berlin, 2012). Nuclear fuels may last longer, but they also exist in finite quantities and will be exhausted at some point in the future. Environmental factors, such as the production of greenhouse gases, may result in international treaties and regulations that would curtail the use of fossil fuels, even before their finite quantities are exhausted. All indications for the future are that humans will have to rely more on renewable energy sources, chiefly wind and solar powers.
