Nuclear energy is hidden inside the atoms, it is the energy that holds together the nucleus of atoms. In nuclear fusion, energy is released when atoms are combined or fused together to form a larger atom. The sun produces energy like this. In nuclear fission, atoms split into smaller atoms, releasing energy. Actually, nuclear power plants can only use nuclear fission to produce energy. In the field of science and technology, Nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes in power generation and elsewhere. Generating electricity from nuclear power plants involves large inputs of resources and also specialist staff a highly industrialized country can provide. Although, high amounts of carbon dioxide are emitted in activities related to building and running the nuclear plants which is very harmful.
The end of World War II , marked as the beginning of the atomic age, when a number of states launched the nuclear arms race. Herewith, the countries started to do nuclear weapons test although it would help to prove how powerful that country is but it leaves a remarkable ecological footprint.The Pokhran-II tests were a series of five nuclear bomb test explosions conducted by India at the Indian Army’s Pokhran Test Range in May 1998. This atomic test resulted so much of pollution and harmed the whole atmosphere.
Between 1945 and 1963, the United States conducted a large number of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, the most representative examples being the first nuclear explosions of the hydrogen bomb conducted in 1954 by the United States. The severe environmental damage caused by these nuclear tests, the most powerful ever to be conducted in the atmosphere, as well as the general context of global nuclear weapons tests, have created the grounds of international cooperation to eliminate nuclear weapons testing.
A treaty of science named Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), a treaty stipulating a ban on nuclear weapons tests in all global environments, except for the underground tests for the economic race. Although it was not signed by two key countries —France and China , as these countries continued their nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere. The treaty had a genuine impact in limiting radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere from 1963. Doing this , it harmed the atmosphere in such a way that people were almost unable to breath.
By the USSR, in the Novaia Zemlia archipelago, north of the Ural mountains , a nuclear test was done in the race of nuclear power of the countries, they tested 2 nuclear test with rockets , one of them were a success but with releasing co2 , which again created destruction. The second one was a total failure as the rocket went into other direction and was about to fall on the near countries but it got blast in the space itself , and the chemical used where turned into a cause of acid rains which destroyed the environment and atmosphere enormously.
Science and technology plays a vital role in nuclear energy , as nuclear energy was created by science . The two ways of producing nuclear energy which is nuclear fission and fusion was also created by Science. Technology plays it’s part in nuclear weapons . There are types of technologies and tools required in creating nuclear weapons. Science although harms the society , land , atmosphere and also the water bodies while doing the nuclear tests, whereas some way nuclear test can prove how much power a country has but this doesn’t mean that they can leave a vast impact on the society and the global world.
In 1996, a new phase in stopping all types of nuclear tests began, with the United Nations adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT 1996). However, the large number of nuclear weapons tests carried out in the atmosphere and underground during 1945–2013 (the last nuclear test was performed by North Korea) was responsible for the current environmental contamination with radioactive waste which resulted in ecologically and socially destroyed sites, due to high levels of radioactivity.
Approximately 90 % of all nuclear tests were conducted in the northern hemisphere, especially by the USA. The northern hemisphere is therefore more contaminated than the southern one due to the presence of large quantities of radioactive isotopes released into the atmosphere during nuclear weapons tests. It is important to note that higher radioactivity of the northern hemisphere is also due to other factors, such as nuclear power-plant accidents.Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing involved the release of amounts of radioactive materials directly into the environment and caused the largest collective dose from man-made sources of radiation .
To conclude , The nuclear tests conducted in the second half of the twentieth century. From the ecological point of view, at this stage, there are a few critically contaminated test sites both on land and in the marine environment . The radioactive isotopes released during nuclear tests, in terms of having caused a major impact on the environment of the human body however nuclear tests is a may to measure the countries power .