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127-451: John Marius Wilson (c. 1805–1885) was a British writer and an editor, most notable for his gazetteers . The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (published 1870–1872), was a substantial topographical dictionary in six volumes. It was a companion to his Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland , published 1854–1857. He was born in Lochmaben , Dumfriesshire , in about 1805, and was ordained as

254-743: A Congregationalist minister, working for a time in County Galway , Ireland. From the late 1840s onwards, he devoted himself to writing and editing, living in Edinburgh, where he died in 1885, aged 80. This article about a member of the Christian clergy in the United Kingdom is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This biographical article about a print editor is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Gazetteer Ancient Greek gazetteers are known to have existed since

381-403: A neutron hits the nucleus of a uranium-235 or plutonium atom, it can split the nucleus into two smaller nuclei, which is a nuclear fission reaction. The reaction releases energy and neutrons. The released neutrons can hit other uranium or plutonium nuclei, causing new fission reactions, which release more energy and more neutrons. This is called a chain reaction . In most commercial reactors,

508-493: A nuclear renaissance , an increase in the construction of new reactors, due to concerns about carbon dioxide emissions . During this period, newer generation III reactors , such as the EPR began construction. Prospects of a nuclear renaissance were delayed by another nuclear accident. The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident was caused by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami , one of

635-524: A Geographical Index". Echard wrote that the title "Gazetteer's" was suggested to him by a "very eminent person" whose name he chose not to disclose. For Part II of this work published in 1704, Echard referred to the book simply as "the Gazeteer". This marked the introduction of the word "gazetteer" into the English language . Historian Robert C. White suggests that the "very eminent person" written of by Echard

762-457: A central government mandate. Historian Peter K. Bol states that local gazetteers composed in this manner were the result of increased domestic and international trade that facilitated greater local wealth throughout China. Historian R. H. Britnell writes of gazetteers in Ming China, "by the sixteenth century, for a county or monastery not to have a gazetteer was regarded as evidence that

889-587: A dictionary on ancient sites of the Assyrians , Persians , Greeks , and Romans with their modern equivalent names, and a work published in Paris in 1651 that was both the first universal and vernacular geographical dictionary of Europe. With the gradual expansion of Laurence Echard 's (d. 1730) gazetteer of 1693, it too became a universal geographical dictionary that was translated into Spanish in 1750, into French in 1809, and into Italian in 1810. Following

1016-652: A duplicate of their records were sent to the central government offices of the Exchequer . To supplement his "new large Map of England" from 1677, the English cartographer John Adams compiled the extensive gazetteer "Index Villaris" in 1680 that had some 24,000 places listed with geographical coordinates coinciding with the map. The "Geographical Dictionary" of Edmund Bohun was published in London in 1688, comprising 806 pages with some 8,500 entries. In his work, Edmund Bohun attributed

1143-669: A gazetteer ( Nainsi ri Khyat and Marwar rai Pargana ri Vigat) for the Marwar region in the 17th century. B. S. Baliga writes that the history of the gazetteer in Tamil Nadu can be traced back to the classical corpus of Sangam literature , dated 200 BC to 300 AD. Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak , the vizier to Akbar the Great of the Mughal Empire , wrote the Ain-e-Akbari , which included

1270-553: A gazetteer with valuable information on India's population in the 16th century. The pre-modern Islamic world produced gazetteers. Cartographers of the Safavid dynasty of Iran made gazetteers of local areas. [REDACTED] Media related to Gazetteers at Wikimedia Commons Nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity . Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission , nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently,

1397-1044: A letter to the CCP Propaganda Department on May 1, 1979, which urged for the revival of difangzhi . This proposal was sponsored by Hu Yaobang in June 1979 while Hu Qiaomu of the CCP Politburo lent his support for the idea in April 1980. The first issue of a modern national journal of difangzhi was issued by January 1981. In Korea , scholars based their gazetteers largely on the Chinese model. Like Chinese gazetteers, there were national, provincial, and local prefecture Korean gazetteers which featured geographic information, demographic data, locations of bridges, schools, temples, tombs, fortresses, pavilions, and other landmarks, cultural customs, local products, resident clan names, and short biographies on well-known people. In an example of

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1524-410: A low-level waste disposal site. In countries with nuclear power, radioactive wastes account for less than 1% of total industrial toxic wastes, much of which remains hazardous for long periods. Overall, nuclear power produces far less waste material by volume than fossil-fuel based power plants. Coal-burning plants, in particular, produce large amounts of toxic and mildly radioactive ash resulting from

1651-452: A place–name index in the rear of major published atlases. Descriptive gazetteers may include lengthy textual descriptions of the places they contain, including explanation of industries , government , geography , together with historical perspectives, maps and/or photographs. Thematic gazetteers list places or geographical features by theme; for example fishing ports, nuclear power stations, or historic buildings. Their common element

1778-533: A reactor. Spent thorium fuel, although more difficult to handle than spent uranium fuel, may present somewhat lower proliferation risks. The nuclear industry also produces a large volume of low-level waste , with low radioactivity, in the form of contaminated items like clothing, hand tools, water purifier resins, and (upon decommissioning) the materials of which the reactor itself is built. Low-level waste can be stored on-site until radiation levels are low enough to be disposed of as ordinary waste, or it can be sent to

1905-1087: A shortage near the end of the century. A 2017 study by researchers from MIT and WHOI found that "at the current consumption rate, global conventional reserves of terrestrial uranium (approximately 7.6 million tonnes) could be depleted in a little over a century". Limited uranium-235 supply may inhibit substantial expansion with the current nuclear technology. While various ways to reduce dependence on such resources are being explored, new nuclear technologies are considered to not be available in time for climate change mitigation purposes or competition with alternatives of renewables in addition to being more expensive and require costly research and development. A study found it to be uncertain whether identified resources will be developed quickly enough to provide uninterrupted fuel supply to expanded nuclear facilities and various forms of mining may be challenged by ecological barriers, costs, and land requirements. Researchers also report considerable import dependence of nuclear energy. Unconventional uranium resources also exist. Uranium

2032-405: A significant effect on countries, such as France and Japan , which had relied more heavily on oil for electric generation to invest in nuclear power. France would construct 25 nuclear power plants over the next 15 years, and as of 2019, 71% of French electricity was generated by nuclear power, the highest percentage by any nation in the world. Some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in

2159-492: A small description for 369 different foreign countries known to Joseon Korea in the 15th century. In Japan , there were also local gazetteers in pre-modern times, called fudoki . Japanese gazetteers preserved historical and legendary accounts of various regions. For example, the Nara-period (710–794) provincial gazetteer Harima no kuni fūdoki of Harima Province provides a story of an alleged visit by Emperor Ōjin in

2286-508: A specific focus, such as the gazetteer of the Swedish atlas "Das Bästas Bilbok" (1969), a road atlas and guide for Sweden , Norway , Finland , and Denmark . In Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) China , the Yuejue Shu (越絕書) written in 52 AD is considered by modern sinologists and historians to be the prototype of the gazetteer ( Chinese : difangzhi ), as it contained essays on

2413-489: A team of cartographers and scholars in 971 to initiate the compilation of a huge atlas and nationwide gazetteer that covered the whole of China proper , which comprised approximately 1,200 counties and 300 prefectures . This project was completed in 1010 by a team of scholars under Song Zhun, who presented it in 1,566 chapters to the throne of Emperor Zhenzong . This Sui dynasty process of infrequently collecting tujing or "map guides" continued, but it would be enhanced by

2540-425: A typical nuclear power station are often stored on site in dry cask storage vessels. Presently, waste is mainly stored at individual reactor sites and there are over 430 locations around the world where radioactive material continues to accumulate. Disposal of nuclear waste is often considered the most politically divisive aspect in the lifecycle of a nuclear power facility. The lack of movement of nuclear waste in

2667-519: A wide variety of subjects including changes in territorial division, the founding of cities, local products, and customs. However, the first gazetteer proper is considered to be the Chronicles of Huayang by Chang Qu 常璩. There are over 8,000 gazetteers of pre-modern China that have survived. Gazetteers became more common in the Song dynasty (960–1279), yet the bulk of surviving gazetteers were written during

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2794-490: Is high-level radioactive waste . While its radioactivity decreases exponentially, it must be isolated from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years, though newer technologies (like fast reactors ) have the potential to significantly reduce this. Because the spent fuel is still mostly fissionable material, some countries (e.g. France and Russia ) reprocess their spent fuel by extracting fissile and fertile elements for fabrication into new fuel, although this process

2921-408: Is spent nuclear fuel , which is considered high-level waste . For Light Water Reactors (LWRs), spent fuel is typically composed of 95% uranium, 4% fission products , and about 1% transuranic actinides (mostly plutonium , neptunium and americium ). The fission products are responsible for the bulk of the short-term radioactivity, whereas the plutonium and other transuranics are responsible for

3048-721: Is 89%. Most new reactors under construction are generation III reactors in Asia. Proponents contend that nuclear power is a safe, sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions . This is because nuclear power generation causes one of the lowest levels of fatalities per unit of energy generated compared to other energy sources. Coal, petroleum, natural gas and hydroelectricity have each caused more fatalities per unit of energy due to air pollution and accidents . Nuclear power plants also emit no greenhouse gases and result in less life-cycle carbon emissions than common "renewables". The radiological hazards associated with nuclear power are

3175-482: Is a fairly common element in the Earth's crust: it is approximately as common as tin or germanium , and is about 40 times more common than silver . Uranium is present in trace concentrations in most rocks, dirt, and ocean water, but is generally economically extracted only where it is present in relatively high concentrations. Uranium mining can be underground, open-pit , or in-situ leach mining. An increasing number of

3302-461: Is also produced during plant decommissioning. There are two broad categories of nuclear waste: low-level waste and high-level waste. The first has low radioactivity and includes contaminated items such as clothing, which poses limited threat. High-level waste is mainly the spent fuel from nuclear reactors, which is very radioactive and must be cooled and then safely disposed of or reprocessed. The most important waste stream from nuclear power reactors

3429-489: Is also safer in terms of nuclear proliferation potential. Reprocessing has the potential to recover up to 95% of the uranium and plutonium fuel in spent nuclear fuel, as well as reduce long-term radioactivity within the remaining waste. However, reprocessing has been politically controversial because of the potential for nuclear proliferation and varied perceptions of increasing the vulnerability to nuclear terrorism . Reprocessing also leads to higher fuel cost compared to

3556-490: Is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history both in total casualties, with 56 direct deaths, and financially, with the cleanup and the cost estimated at 18   billion   Rbls (US$ 68   billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation). The international organization to promote safety awareness and the professional development of operators in nuclear facilities, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO),

3683-410: Is contained within sixteen casks. It is estimated that to produce a lifetime supply of energy for a person at a western standard of living (approximately 3   GWh ) would require on the order of the volume of a soda can of low enriched uranium , resulting in a similar volume of spent fuel generated. Following interim storage in a spent fuel pool , the bundles of used fuel rod assemblies of

3810-546: Is currently done in France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, and India. In the United States, spent nuclear fuel is currently not reprocessed. The La Hague reprocessing facility in France has operated commercially since 1976 and is responsible for half the world's reprocessing as of 2010. It produces MOX fuel from spent fuel derived from several countries. More than 32,000 tonnes of spent fuel had been reprocessed as of 2015, with

3937-405: Is in the commissioning phase, with plans to build more. Another alternative to fast-neutron breeders are thermal-neutron breeder reactors that use uranium-233 bred from thorium as fission fuel in the thorium fuel cycle . Thorium is about 3.5 times more common than uranium in the Earth's crust, and has different geographic characteristics. India's three-stage nuclear power programme features

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4064-424: Is more expensive than producing new fuel from mined uranium . All reactors breed some plutonium-239 , which is found in the spent fuel, and because Pu-239 is the preferred material for nuclear weapons , reprocessing is seen as a weapon proliferation risk. The first nuclear power plant was built in the 1950s. The global installed nuclear capacity grew to 100   GW in the late 1970s, and then expanded during

4191-521: Is much less radioactive than spent nuclear fuel by weight, coal ash is produced in much higher quantities per unit of energy generated. It is also released directly into the environment as fly ash , whereas nuclear plants use shielding to protect the environment from radioactive materials. Nuclear waste volume is small compared to the energy produced. For example, at Yankee Rowe Nuclear Power Station , which generated 44 billion kilowatt hours of electricity when in service, its complete spent fuel inventory

4318-478: Is naturally present in seawater at a concentration of about 3 micrograms per liter, with 4.4 billion tons of uranium considered present in seawater at any time. In 2014 it was suggested that it would be economically competitive to produce nuclear fuel from seawater if the process was implemented at large scale. Like fossil fuels, over geological timescales, uranium extracted on an industrial scale from seawater would be replenished by both river erosion of rocks and

4445-574: Is that the geographical location is an important attribute of the features listed. Gazetteer editors gather facts and other information from official government reports, the census , chambers of commerce , together with numerous other sources, and organise these in digest form. In his journal article "Alexander and the Ganges" (1923), the 20th-century historian W.W. Tarn calls a list and description of satrapies of Alexander's Empire written between 324 and 323 BC as an ancient gazetteer. Tarn notes that

4572-617: Is the reactor-grade plutonium (RGPu) that is extracted from spent fuel. It is mixed with uranium oxide and fabricated into mixed-oxide or MOX fuel . Because thermal LWRs remain the most common reactor worldwide, this type of recycling is the most common. It is considered to increase the sustainability of the nuclear fuel cycle, reduce the attractiveness of spent fuel to theft, and lower the volume of high level nuclear waste. Spent MOX fuel cannot generally be recycled for use in thermal-neutron reactors. This issue does not affect fast-neutron reactors , which are therefore preferred in order to achieve

4699-458: Is then converted into a compact ore concentrate form, known as yellowcake (U 3 O 8 ), to facilitate transport. Fission reactors generally need uranium-235 , a fissile isotope of uranium . The concentration of uranium-235 in natural uranium is low (about 0.7%). Some reactors can use this natural uranium as fuel, depending on their neutron economy . These reactors generally have graphite or heavy water moderators. For light water reactors,

4826-549: The American Revolutionary War , United States clergyman and historian Jeremy Belknap and Postmaster General Ebenezer Hazard intended to create the first post-revolutionary geographical works and gazetteers, but they were anticipated by the clergyman and geographer Jedidiah Morse with his Geography Made Easy in 1784. However, Morse was unable to finish the gazetteer in time for his 1784 geography and postponed it. Yet his delay to publish it lasted too long, as it

4953-554: The Deng era to replace the people's communes with traditional townships . The difangzhi effort under Mao yielded little results (only 10 of the 250 designated counties ended up publishing a gazetteer), while the writing of difangzhi was interrupted during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), trumped by the village and family histories which were more appropriate for the theme of class struggle . A Li Baiyu of Shanxi forwarded

5080-550: The Hellenistic era. The first known Chinese gazetteer was released by the first century, and with the age of print media in China by the ninth century , the Chinese gentry became invested in producing gazetteers for their local areas as a source of information as well as local pride. The geographer Stephanus of Byzantium wrote a geographical dictionary (which currently has missing parts) in

5207-609: The Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Modern scholar Liu Weiyi notes that just under 400 gazetteers were compiled in the era between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 and the Tang dynasty (618–907). Gazetteers from this era focused on boundaries and territory, place names, mountains and rivers, ancient sites, local products, local myths and legends , customs, botany , topography , and locations of palaces, streets, temples, etc. By

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5334-524: The Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository of the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant was under construction as of 2015. Most thermal-neutron reactors run on a once-through nuclear fuel cycle , mainly due to the low price of fresh uranium. However, many reactors are also fueled with recycled fissionable materials that remain in spent nuclear fuel. The most common fissionable material that is recycled

5461-447: The Sui dynasty (581–618) united a politically divided China, Emperor Yang of Sui had all the empire's commanderies prepare gazetteers called ' maps and treatises ' (Chinese: tujing ) so that a vast amount of updated textual and visual information on local roads, rivers, canals, and landmarks could be utilized by the central government to maintain control and provide better security. Although

5588-530: The earliest extant Chinese maps date to the 4th century BC, and tujing since the Qin (221–206 BC) or Han dynasties, this was the first known instance in China when the textual information of tujing became the primary element over the drawn illustrations. This Sui dynasty process of providing maps and visual aids in written gazetteers—as well as the submitting of gazetteers with illustrative maps by local administrations to

5715-415: The fangzhi and the tujing was that the former was a product of "local initiative, not a central command" according to Peter K. Bol, and were usually ten, twenty, or even fifty chapters in length compared to the average four chapters for map guides. Furthermore, the fangzhi were almost always printed because they were intended for a large reading audience, whereas tujing were exclusive records read by

5842-439: The integral fast reactor and molten salt reactors , can use as fuel the plutonium and other actinides in spent fuel from light water reactors, thanks to their fast fission spectrum. This offers a potentially more attractive alternative to deep geological disposal. The thorium fuel cycle results in similar fission products, though creates a much smaller proportion of transuranic elements from neutron capture events within

5969-422: The thermal energy released from nuclear fission . A fission nuclear power plant is generally composed of: a nuclear reactor , in which the nuclear reactions generating heat take place; a cooling system, which removes the heat from inside the reactor; a steam turbine , which transforms the heat into mechanical energy ; an electric generator , which transforms the mechanical energy into electrical energy. When

6096-498: The woodblock print illustrations of Miao peoples in the Guizhou gazeteer, stating "the 1692 version of the Kangxi era gazetteer show a refinement in the quality of the illustrations by comparison to 1673". Historian Timothy Brook states that Ming dynasty gazetteers demonstrate a shift in the attitudes of Chinese gentry towards the traditionally lower merchant class . As time went on,

6223-593: The "Daqing Yitongzhi" ('Gazetteer of the Qing Empire'). This was provided with a preface in 1744 (more than a decade after Jiang's death), revised in 1764, and reprinted in 1849. The Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci created the first comprehensive world map in the Chinese language in the early 17th century, while comprehensive world gazetteers were later translated into Chinese by Europeans. The Christian missionary William Muirhead (1822–1900), who lived in Shanghai during

6350-623: The "Sinch'an p'aldo" ('Newly Compiled Geographic Treatise on the Eight Circuits'). With additional material and correction of mistakes, the title of this gazetteer was revised in 1454 as the "Sejong Sillok chiriji" ('King Sejong's Treatise on Geography'), updated in 1531 under the title "Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam" ('Augmented Survey of the Geography of Korea'), and enlarged in 1612. The Joseon Koreans also created international gazetteers. The "Yojisongnam" gazetteer compiled from 1451 to 1500 provides

6477-675: The "Yuehaiguanzhi" ('Gazetteer of the Maritime Customs of Guangdong') published in 1839 (reprinted in 1935). The Chinese language gazetteer Haiguo Tuzhi ('Illustrated Gazetteer of the Sea Kingdoms') by Wei Yuan in 1844 (with material influenced by the "Sizhou zhi" of Lin Zexu ) was printed in Japan two decades later 1854. This work was popular in Japan not for its geographical knowledge, but for its analysis of potential defensive military strategy in

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6604-629: The 1980s, reaching 300   GW by 1990. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union resulted in increased regulation and public opposition to nuclear power plants. These factors, along with high cost of construction, resulted in the global installed capacity only increasing to 392   GW by 2023. These plants supplied 2,602 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in 2023, equivalent to about 9% of global electricity generation , and were

6731-757: The 2 billion year old natural nuclear fission reactors in Oklo , Gabon is cited as "a source of essential information today." Experts suggest that centralized underground repositories which are well-managed, guarded, and monitored, would be a vast improvement. There is an "international consensus on the advisability of storing nuclear waste in deep geological repositories ". With the advent of new technologies, other methods including horizontal drillhole disposal into geologically inactive areas have been proposed. There are no commercial scale purpose built underground high-level waste repositories in operation. However, in Finland

6858-503: The 2011 disaster. Kishida is also pushing for research and construction of new safer nuclear plants to safeguard Japanese consumers from the fluctuating price of the fossil fuel market and reduce Japan's greenhouse gas emissions. Kishida intends to have Japan become a significant exporter of nuclear energy and technology to developing countries around the world. By 2015, the IAEA's outlook for nuclear energy had become more promising, recognizing

6985-483: The 2nd century AD provided gazetteer information on geographical terms. Perhaps predating Greek gazetteers were those made in ancient Egypt . Although she does not specifically label the document as a gazetteer, Penelope Wilson (Department of Archaeology, Durham University ) describes an ancient Egyptian papyrus found at the site of Tanis, Egypt (a city founded during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt ), which provides

7112-537: The 3rd century while on an imperial hunting expedition. Local Japanese gazetteers could also be found in later periods such as the Edo period . Gazetteers were often composed by the request of wealthy patrons; for example, six scholars in the service of the daimyō of the Ikeda household published the Biyō kokushi gazetteer for several counties in 1737. World gazetteers were written by

7239-528: The 480s BC), saying "they did not write connected accounts but instead broke them up according to peoples and cities, treating each separately". Historian Truesdell S. Brown asserts that what Dionysius describes in this quote about the logographers should be categorized not as a true "history" but rather as a gazetteer. While discussing the Greek conception of the river delta in ancient Greek literature, Francis Celoria notes that both Ptolemy and Pausanias of

7366-532: The Empire of Great Britaine published in 1611 provided gazetteers for counties throughout England, which included illustrative maps, short local histories, a list of administrative hundreds, an index of parishes , and the coordinates of longitude and latitude for county towns. Starting in 1662, the Hearth Tax Returns with attached maps of local areas were compiled by individual parishes throughout England while

7493-718: The Italian printer Aldus Manutius in his work of 1502. The Italian monk Phillippus Ferrarius (d. 1626) published his geographical dictionary "Epitome Geographicus in Quattuor Libros Divisum" in the Swiss city of Zürich in 1605. He divided this work into overhead topics of cities, rivers, mountains, and lakes and swamps. All placenames, given in Latin , were arranged in alphabetical order for each overhead division by geographic type;. A year after his death, his "Lexicon Geographicum"

7620-773: The Japanese in the 19th century, such as the Kon'yo zushiki ("Annotated Maps of the World") published by Mitsukuri Shōgo in 1845, the Hakkō tsūshi ("Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Entire World") by Mitsukuri Genpo in 1856, and the Bankoku zushi ("Illustrated Gazetteer of the Nations of the World"), which was written by an Englishman named Colton, translated by Sawa Ginjirō, and printed by Tezuka Ritsu in 1862. Despite

7747-604: The PWR being the reactor of choice also for power generation, thus having a lasting impact on the civilian electricity market in the years to come. On June 27, 1954, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in the USSR became the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid , producing around 5 megawatts of electric power. The world's first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale, England

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7874-785: The Tang dynasty the gazetteer became much more geographically specific, with a broad amount of content arranged topically; for example, there would be individual sections devoted to local astronomy, schools, dikes, canals, post stations, altars, local deities, temples, tombs, etc. By the Song dynasty it became more common for gazetteers to provide biographies of local celebrities, accounts of elite local families, bibliographies, and literary anthologies of poems and essays dedicated to famous local spots. Song gazetteers also made lists and descriptions of city walls, gate names, wards and markets, districts, population size, and residences of former prefects . In 610 after

8001-581: The United States in the early 1960s. In the late 1960s, some members of the scientific community began to express pointed concerns. These anti-nuclear concerns related to nuclear accidents , nuclear proliferation , nuclear terrorism and radioactive waste disposal . In the early 1970s, there were large protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in Wyhl , Germany. The project was cancelled in 1975. The anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired opposition to nuclear power in other parts of Europe and North America. By

8128-401: The United States, over 120 Light Water Reactor proposals were ultimately cancelled and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island with no fatalities, played a major part in the reduction in the number of new plant constructions in many countries. During the 1980s one new nuclear reactor started up every 17 days on average. By the end of

8255-632: The actinides (the most active and dangerous components) in the present inventory of nuclear waste, while also producing power and creating additional quantities of fuel for more reactors via the breeding process. As of 2017, there are two breeders producing commercial power, BN-600 reactor and the BN-800 reactor , both in Russia. The Phénix breeder reactor in France was powered down in 2009 after 36 years of operation. Both China and India are building breeder reactors. The Indian 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor

8382-466: The ambitious title, the work by Genpo only covered Yōroppa bu ("Section on Europe") while the planned section for Asia was not published. In 1979 the 50 volume gazeteer Nihon rekishi chimei taikei ("Japanese Historical Place Names") series was launched and it is currently also available online with "200,000 headings with detailed explanations of [each] place name". In pre-modern India , local gazetteers were written. For example, Muhnot Nainsi wrote

8509-584: The building of larger single-purpose production reactors for the production of weapons-grade plutonium for use in the first nuclear weapons. The United States tested the first nuclear weapon in July 1945, the Trinity test , and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened one month later. Despite the military nature of the first nuclear devices, there was strong optimism in the 1940s and 1950s that nuclear power could provide cheap and endless energy. Electricity

8636-702: The bulk of the long-term radioactivity. High-level waste (HLW) must be stored isolated from the biosphere with sufficient shielding so as to limit radiation exposure. After being removed from the reactors, used fuel bundles are stored for six to ten years in spent fuel pools , which provide cooling and shielding against radiation. After that, the fuel is cool enough that it can be safely transferred to dry cask storage . The radioactivity decreases exponentially with time, such that it will have decreased by 99.5% after 100 years. The more intensely radioactive short-lived fission products (SLFPs) decay into stable elements in approximately 300 years, and after about 100,000 years,

8763-448: The central government—was continued in every subsequent Chinese dynasty . Historian James M. Hargett states that by the time of the Song dynasty, gazetteers became far more geared towards serving the current political, administrative, and military concerns than in gazetteers of previous eras, while there were many more gazetteers compiled on the local and national levels than in previous eras. Emperor Taizu of Song ordered Lu Duosun and

8890-415: The concentration of naturally occurring radioactive materials in coal. A 2008 report from Oak Ridge National Laboratory concluded that coal power actually results in more radioactivity being released into the environment than nuclear power operation, and that the population effective dose equivalent from radiation from coal plants is 100 times that from the operation of nuclear plants. Although coal ash

9017-716: The cusp of World War II , in order to develop a nuclear weapon . In the United States, these research efforts led to the creation of the first man-made nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1 under the Stagg Field stadium at the University of Chicago , which achieved criticality on December 2, 1942. The reactor's development was part of the Manhattan Project , the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II. It led to

9144-409: The decade, global installed nuclear capacity reached 300   GW. Since the late 1980s, new capacity additions slowed significantly, with the installed nuclear capacity reaching 366   GW in 2005. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the USSR , involving an RBMK reactor, altered the development of nuclear power and led to a greater focus on meeting international safety and regulatory standards. It

9271-753: The direct result of castle construction and expansion. In 1316 the Nomina Villarum survey was initiated by Edward II of England ; it was essentially a list of all the administrative subdivisions throughout England which could be utilized by the state in order to assess how much military troops could be conscripted and summoned from each region. The Speculum Britanniae (1596) of the Tudor era English cartographer and topographer John Norden (1548–1625) had an alphabetical list of places throughout England with headings showing their administrative hundreds and referenced to attached maps. Englishman John Speed 's Theatre of

9398-416: The disaster, Japan shut down all of its nuclear power reactors, some of them permanently, and in 2015 began a gradual process to restart the remaining 40 reactors, following safety checks and based on revised criteria for operations and public approval. In 2022, the Japanese government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida , declared that 10 more nuclear power plants were to be reopened since

9525-439: The document is dated no later than June 323 BC, since it features Babylon as not yet partitioned by Alexander's generals. It was revised by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC. In the 1st century BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentioned the chronicle -type format of the writing of the logographers in the age before the founder of the Greek historiographic tradition, Herodotus (i.e., before

9652-558: The face of European imperialism and the Qing's recent defeat in the First Opium War due to European artillery and gunboats. Continuing an old tradition of fangzhi , the Republic of China had gazetteers composed and created national standards for them in 1929, updating these in 1946. The printing of gazetteers was revived in 1956 under Mao Zedong and again in the 1980s, after the reforms of

9779-568: The first known Western geographical dictionary to geographer Stephanus of Byzantium (fl. 6th century) while also noting influence in his work from the Thesaurus Geographicus (1587) by the Belgian cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598), but stated that Ortelius' work dealt largely with ancient geography and not up-to-date information. Only fragments of Stephanus' geographical work Ethnica (Εθνικά) have survived and were first examined by

9906-479: The following for each administrative area of Egypt at the time: ...the name of a nome capital, its sacred barque, its sacred tree, its cemetery, the date of its festival, the names of forbidden objects, the local god, land, and lake of the city. This interesting codification of data, probably made by a priest, is paralleled by very similar editions of data on the temple walls at Edfu, for example. The Domesday Book initiated by William I of England in 1086

10033-452: The full energy potential of the original uranium. The main constituent of spent fuel from LWRs is slightly enriched uranium . This can be recycled into reprocessed uranium (RepU), which can be used in a fast reactor, used directly as fuel in CANDU reactors, or re-enriched for another cycle through an LWR. Re-enriching of reprocessed uranium is common in France and Russia. Reprocessed uranium

10160-514: The gentry solicited funds from merchants to build and repair schools, print scholarly books, build Chinese pagodas on auspicious sites , and other things that were needed by the gentry and scholar-officials in order to succeed. Hence, the gentry figures composing the gazetteers in the latter half of the Ming period spoke favorably of merchants, whereas before they were rarely mentioned. Brook and other modern sinologist historians also examine and consult

10287-515: The heart of France's drive for carbon neutrality by 2050. Meanwhile, in the United States, the Department of Energy , in collaboration with commercial entities, TerraPower and X-energy , is planning on building two different advanced nuclear reactors by 2027, with further plans for nuclear implementation in its long term green energy and energy security goals. Nuclear power plants are thermal power stations that generate electricity by harnessing

10414-570: The highest output mines are remote underground operations, such as McArthur River uranium mine , in Canada, which by itself accounts for 13% of global production. As of 2011 the world's known resources of uranium, economically recoverable at the arbitrary price ceiling of US$ 130/kg, were enough to last for between 70 and 100 years. In 2007, the OECD estimated 670 years of economically recoverable uranium in total conventional resources and phosphate ores assuming

10541-425: The importance of low-carbon generation for mitigating climate change . As of 2015 , the global trend was for new nuclear power stations coming online to be balanced by the number of old plants being retired. In 2016, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected for its "base case" that world nuclear power generation would increase from 2,344 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2012 to 4,500   TWh in 2040. Most of

10668-588: The information presented. World gazetteers usually consist of an alphabetical listing of countries, with pertinent statistics for each one, with some gazetteers listing information on individual cities , towns , villages , and other settlements of varying sizes. Short-form gazetteers , often used in conjunction with computer mapping and GIS systems, may simply contain a list of place-names together with their locations in latitude and longitude or other spatial referencing systems (e.g.,  British National Grid reference). Short-form gazetteers appear as

10795-569: The largest earthquakes ever recorded. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant suffered three core meltdowns due to failure of the emergency cooling system for lack of electricity supply. This resulted in the most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster. The accident prompted a re-examination of nuclear safety and nuclear energy policy in many countries. Germany approved plans to close all its reactors by 2022, and many other countries reviewed their nuclear power programs. Following

10922-547: The late 1970s. During the 1970s and 1980s rising economic costs (related to extended construction times largely due to regulatory changes and pressure-group litigation) and falling fossil fuel prices made nuclear power plants then under construction less attractive. In the 1980s in the U.S. and 1990s in Europe, the flat electric grid growth and electricity liberalization also made the addition of large new baseload energy generators economically unattractive. The 1973 oil crisis had

11049-438: The late Ming dynasty officials who compiled the information on the ethnic groups of Guizhou offered scanty details about them in their gazetteers (perhaps due to their lack of contact with these peoples), the later Qing dynasty gazetteers often provided a much more comprehensive analysis. By 1673 the Guizhou gazetteers featured different written entries for the various Miao peoples of the region. Historian Laura Holsteter writes on

11176-576: The late Qing period, published the gazetteer "Dili quanzhi", which was reprinted in Japan in 1859. Divided into fifteen volumes, this work covered Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Ocean Archipelagos , and was sub-divided further into sections on geography, topography, water masses, atmosphere, biology, anthropology, and historical geography. Chinese maritime trade gazetteers mentioned a slew of different countries that came to trade in China, such as United States vessels docking at Canton in

11303-558: The latter, the 1530 edition of "Sinjŭng tongguk yŏji sŭngnam" ('New Edition of the Korean National Gazetteer') gave a brief statement about Pak Yŏn (1378–1458), noting his successful career in the civil service , his exceptional filiality, his brilliance in music theory , and his praisable efforts in systematizing ritual music for Sejong's court . King Sejong established the Joseon dynasty's first national gazetteer in 1432, called

11430-516: The life of nuclear fuel to a few years. In some countries, such as the United States, spent fuel is classified in its entirety as a nuclear waste. In other countries, such as France, it is largely reprocessed to produce a partially recycled fuel, known as mixed oxide fuel or MOX . For spent fuel that does not undergo reprocessing, the most concerning isotopes are the medium-lived transuranic elements , which are led by reactor-grade plutonium (half-life 24,000 years). Some proposed reactor designs, such as

11557-464: The local Ming gazetteers to compare population info with the contemporary central government records, which often provided dubious population figures that did not reflect the actually larger population size of China during the time. Although better known for his work on the Gujin Tushu Jicheng encyclopedia, the early-to-mid Qing scholar Jiang Tingxi aided other scholars in the compilation of

11684-430: The local histories and gazetteers of provinces such as Guizhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. As the Qing dynasty pushed further with its troops and government authorities into areas of Guizhou that were uninhabited and not administered by the Qing government, the official gazetteers of the region would be revised to include the newly drawn-up districts and non-Han ethnic groups (mostly Miao peoples ) therein. While

11811-439: The local officials who drafted them and the central government officials who collected them. Although most Song gazetteers credited local officials as the authors, already in the Song there were bibliographers who noted that non-official literati were asked to compose these works or did so on their own behalf. By the 16th century—during the Ming dynasty—local gazetteers were commonly composed due to local decision-making rather than

11938-719: The majority from France, 17% from Germany, and 9% from Japan. Breeding is the process of converting non-fissile material into fissile material that can be used as nuclear fuel. The non-fissile material that can be used for this process is called fertile material , and constitute the vast majority of current nuclear waste. This breeding process occurs naturally in breeder reactors . As opposed to light water thermal-neutron reactors, which use uranium-235 (0.7% of all natural uranium), fast-neutron breeder reactors use uranium-238 (99.3% of all natural uranium) or thorium. A number of fuel cycles and breeder reactor combinations are considered to be sustainable or renewable sources of energy. In 2006 it

12065-404: The matured literary genre of fangzhi or "treatise on a place" of the Song dynasty. Although Zheng Qiao of the 12th century did not notice the fangzhi while writing his encyclopedic Tongzhi including monographs to geography and cities, others such as the bibliographer Chen Zhensun of the 13th century were listing gazetteers instead of the map guides in their works. The main differences between

12192-488: The mid-1970s anti-nuclear activism gained a wider appeal and influence, and nuclear power began to become an issue of major public protest. In some countries, the nuclear power conflict "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies". The increased public hostility to nuclear power led to a longer license procurement process, more regulations and increased requirements for safety equipment, which made new construction much more expensive. In

12319-437: The most common type of reactor, this concentration is too low, and it must be increased by a process called uranium enrichment . In civilian light water reactors, uranium is typically enriched to 3.5–5% uranium-235. The uranium is then generally converted into uranium oxide (UO 2 ), a ceramic, that is then compressively sintered into fuel pellets, a stack of which forms fuel rods of the proper composition and geometry for

12446-418: The most hazardous substances in nuclear waste), there is an estimated 160,000 years worth of uranium in total conventional resources and phosphate ore at the price of 60–100 US$ /kg. However, reprocessing is expensive, possibly dangerous and can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. One analysis found that uranium prices could increase by two orders of magnitude between 2035 and 2100 and that there could be

12573-428: The natural process of uranium dissolved from the surface area of the ocean floor, both of which maintain the solubility equilibria of seawater concentration at a stable level. Some commentators have argued that this strengthens the case for nuclear power to be considered a renewable energy . The normal operation of nuclear power plants and facilities produce radioactive waste , or nuclear waste. This type of waste

12700-432: The near future. Most nuclear power plants use thermal reactors with enriched uranium in a once-through fuel cycle . Fuel is removed when the percentage of neutron absorbing atoms becomes so large that a chain reaction can no longer be sustained, typically three years. It is then cooled for several years in on-site spent fuel pools before being transferred to long-term storage. The spent fuel, though low in volume,

12827-416: The once-through fuel cycle. While reprocessing reduces the volume of high-level waste, it does not reduce the fission products that are the primary causes of residual heat generation and radioactivity for the first few centuries outside the reactor. Thus, reprocessed waste still requires an almost identical treatment for the initial first few hundred years. Reprocessing of civilian fuel from power reactors

12954-469: The particular reactor. After some time in the reactor, the fuel will have reduced fissile material and increased fission products, until its use becomes impractical. At this point, the spent fuel will be moved to a spent fuel pool which provides cooling for the thermal heat and shielding for ionizing radiation. After several months or years, the spent fuel is radioactively and thermally cool enough to be moved to dry storage casks or reprocessed. Uranium

13081-429: The place was inconsequential". While working in the Department of Arms , the Tang dynasty cartographer Jia Dan (730–805) and his colleagues would acquire information from foreign envoys about their respective homelands, and from these interrogations would produce maps supplemented by textual information. Even within China, ethnographic information on ethnic minorities of non- Han peoples were often described in

13208-497: The predicted increase was expected to be in Asia. As of 2018, there were over 150 nuclear reactors planned including 50 under construction. In January 2019, China had 45 reactors in operation, 13 under construction, and planned to build 43 more, which would make it the world's largest generator of nuclear electricity. As of 2021, 17 reactors were reported to be under construction. China built significantly fewer reactors than originally planned. Its share of electricity from nuclear power

13335-454: The primary motivations of the anti-nuclear movement , which contends that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment, citing the potential for accidents like the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, and is too expensive/slow to deploy when compared to alternative sustainable energy sources. Nuclear fission was discovered in 1938 after over four decades of work on

13462-622: The private sector. The first organization to develop practical nuclear power was the U.S. Navy , with the S1W reactor for the purpose of propelling submarines and aircraft carriers . The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS  Nautilus , was put to sea in January 1954. The S1W reactor was a pressurized water reactor . This design was chosen because it was simpler, more compact, and easier to operate compared to alternative designs, thus more suitable to be used in submarines. This decision would result in

13589-462: The reaction rate is contained by control rods that absorb excess neutrons. The controllability of nuclear reactors depends on the fact that a small fraction of neutrons resulting from fission are delayed . The time delay between the fission and the release of the neutrons slows changes in reaction rates and gives time for moving the control rods to adjust the reaction rate. The life cycle of nuclear fuel starts with uranium mining . The uranium ore

13716-637: The restart of another ten reactors. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in July 2022 announced that the country should consider building advanced reactors and extending operating licences beyond 60 years. As of 2022, with world oil and gas prices on the rise, while Germany is restarting its coal plants to deal with loss of Russian gas that it needs to supplement its Energiewende , many other countries have announced ambitious plans to reinvigorate ageing nuclear generating capacity with new investments. French President Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to build six new reactors in coming decades, placing nuclear at

13843-450: The science of radioactivity and the elaboration of new nuclear physics that described the components of atoms . Soon after the discovery of the fission process, it was realized that a fissioning nucleus can induce further nucleus fissions, thus inducing a self-sustaining chain reaction. Once this was experimentally confirmed in 1939, scientists in many countries petitioned their governments for support for nuclear fission research, just on

13970-512: The second-largest low-carbon power source after hydroelectricity . As of November 2024, there are 415 civilian fission reactors in the world , with overall capacity of 374   GW, 66 under construction and 87 planned, with a combined capacity of 72   GW and 84   GW, respectively. The United States has the largest fleet of nuclear reactors, generating almost 800   TWh of low-carbon electricity per year with an average capacity factor of 92%. The average global capacity factor

14097-480: The sixth century which influenced later European compilers. Modern gazetteers can be found in reference sections of most libraries as well as on the internet. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a "gazetteer" as a "geographical index or dictionary". It includes as an example a work by the British historian Laurence Echard (d. 1730) in 1693 that bore the title "The Gazetteer's: or Newsman's Interpreter: Being

14224-426: The spent fuel becomes less radioactive than natural uranium ore. Commonly suggested methods to isolate LLFP waste from the biosphere include separation and transmutation , synroc treatments, or deep geological storage. Thermal-neutron reactors , which presently constitute the majority of the world fleet, cannot burn up the reactor grade plutonium that is generated during the reactor operation. This limits

14351-502: The text-based Gazetteer for Scotland , and the new (2008) National Gazetteer (for Scotland) , formerly known as the Definitive National Address – Scotland National Gazetteer. In addition to local or regional gazetteers, there have also been comprehensive world gazetteers published; an early example would be the 1912 world gazetteer published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins . There are also interregional gazetteers with

14478-417: The then-current use rate. Light water reactors make relatively inefficient use of nuclear fuel, mostly using only the very rare uranium-235 isotope. Nuclear reprocessing can make this waste reusable, and newer reactors also achieve a more efficient use of the available resources than older ones. With a pure fast reactor fuel cycle with a burn up of all the uranium and actinides (which presently make up

14605-524: The use of a thorium fuel cycle in the third stage, as it has abundant thorium reserves but little uranium. Nuclear decommissioning is the process of dismantling a nuclear facility to the point that it no longer requires measures for radiation protection, returning the facility and its parts to a safe enough level to be entrusted for other uses. Due to the presence of radioactive materials, nuclear decommissioning presents technical and economic challenges. The costs of decommissioning are generally spread over

14732-457: The vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants . Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2 . Reactors producing controlled fusion power have been operated since 1958, but have yet to generate net power and are not expected to be commercially available in

14859-512: The work in compiling it". Gazetteers became widely popular in Britain in the 19th century, with publishers such as Fullarton , Mackenzie , Chambers and W & A. K. Johnston , many of whom were Scottish , meeting public demand for information on an expanding Empire. This British tradition continues in the electronic age with innovations such as the National Land and Property Gazetteer ,

14986-470: Was "little more than medleys of politics, history and miscellaneous remarks on the manners, languages and arts of different nations, arranged in the order in which the territories stand on the map". Nevertheless, in 1802 Morse followed up his original work by co-publishing A New Gazetteer of the Eastern Continent with Rev. Elijah Parish, the latter of whom Ralph H. Brown asserts did the "lion's share of

15113-559: Was 5% in 2019 and observers have cautioned that, along with the risks, the changing economics of energy generation may cause new nuclear energy plants to "no longer make sense in a world that is leaning toward cheaper, more reliable renewable energy". In October 2021, the Japanese cabinet approved the new Plan for Electricity Generation to 2030 prepared by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE) and an advisory committee, following public consultation. The nuclear target for 2030 requires

15240-471: Was Joseph Scott in 1795 who published the first post-revolutionary American gazetteer, his Gazetteer of the United States . With the aid of Noah Webster and Rev. Samuel Austin, Morse finally published his gazetteer The American Universal Geography in 1797. However, Morse's gazetteer did not receive distinction by literary critics, as gazetteers were deemed as belonging to a lower literary class. The reviewer of Joseph Scott's 1795 gazetteer commented that it

15367-522: Was a government survey on all the administrative counties of England; it was used to assess the properties of farmsteads and landholders in order to tax them sufficiently. In the survey, numerous English castles were listed; scholars debate on exactly how many were actually referenced in the book. However, the Domesday Book does detail the fact that out of 3,558 registered houses destroyed in 112 different boroughs listed, 410 of these destroyed houses were

15494-461: Was connected to the national power grid on 27 August 1956. In common with a number of other generation I reactors , the plant had the dual purpose of producing electricity and plutonium-239 , the latter for the nascent nuclear weapons program in Britain . The total global installed nuclear capacity initially rose relatively quickly, rising from less than 1 gigawatt (GW) in 1960 to 100   GW in

15621-399: Was created as a direct outcome of the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The Chernobyl disaster played a major part in the reduction in the number of new plant constructions in the following years. Influenced by these events, Italy voted against nuclear power in a 1987 referendum, becoming the first country to completely phase out nuclear power in 1990. In the early 2000s, nuclear energy was expecting

15748-420: Was estimated that with seawater extraction, there was likely five billion years' worth of uranium resources for use in breeder reactors. Breeder technology has been used in several reactors, but as of 2006, the high cost of reprocessing fuel safely requires uranium prices of more than US$ 200/kg before becoming justified economically. Breeder reactors are however being developed for their potential to burn all of

15875-673: Was generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20, 1951, at the EBR-I experimental station near Arco, Idaho , which initially produced about 100   kW . In 1953, American President Dwight Eisenhower gave his " Atoms for Peace " speech at the United Nations , emphasizing the need to develop "peaceful" uses of nuclear power quickly. This was followed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 which allowed rapid declassification of U.S. reactor technology and encouraged development by

16002-522: Was his colleague Edmund Bohun , and chose not to mention Bohun because he became associated with the Jacobite movement . Since the 18th century, the word "gazetteer" has been used interchangeably to define either its traditional meaning (i.e., a geographical dictionary or directory) or a daily newspaper , such as the London Gazetteer . Gazetteers are often categorized by the type, and scope, of

16129-448: Was published, which contained more than 9,000 different entries for geographic places. This was an improvement over Ortelius' work, since it included modern placenames and places discovered since the time of Ortelius. Pierre Duval (1618–1683), a nephew of the French cartographer Nicolas Sanson , wrote various geographical dictionaries. These include a dictionary on the abbeys of France,

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