Nuclear Energy Biology Project

By; Yinuo hao | elmore 4A

a biology-themed choose your own adventure!

NUclear energy

important: only move using the buttons, not arrows

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BEGIN

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You swing your hatchet, the steel cutting through the branches blocking your path. Your dog, Garfield, had run off while you were distracted, and you were searching for him.“Hey, look at that building up ahead!” You look in the direction your friend, Phoebe, is gesturing, although her voice is muffled by the gas mask on her face. Up ahead, there are tall, cylindrical structures behind a tall chain-link fence. As you emerge into the clearing in front of the fence, you notice a concrete sign in front. After wiping off the moss of the worn surface, you realize it says “NuEnergy.” You aren’t sure what it’s supposed to be, but your thoughts are quickly answered when you see a sign in the distance reading, “Nuclear Energy Plant.” “Think you could pick this lock?” Phoebe says, scrutinizing the padlock on the fence. “Or we could just climb over it.” Before you can respond, she takes off her backpack and heaves it over the fence. You do the same, and your backpack lands on the other side with a thump. Eventually, you pull yourself up and over the fence, landing not so gracefully on the other side.

• Go to the building

• Go to the parking lot

• Go to the reactors

Where will you and Phoebe go next?

choose

RIGHT

Left

You choose to head to the office building. The door seems to be jammed, so Phoebe uses her baseball bat to smash it in. You both pick your way over the broken glass, and you switch on your flashlight to get a view of your surroundings. The building smells old, and dust particles are visible in the glare of your flashlight. When you look around, you see that everything seems to have been frozen in place, untouched, except for a few spiders making their way across the carpet and ceiling. Neither of you are sure where to go, but Phoebe notices that some of the doors are ajar in one of the hallways. With each step you take, a few insects scurry away from under your feet. When you reach the hallway, you see that one of the rooms is to your right, and the other is to your left. Which room will you enter first?

You and Phoebe decide to go into the room to your right. The door squeaks when you push it open to reveal an elaborately decorated executive desk with various papers stacked on top. Light from the outside filters in through the blinds, casting an odd glow in the room. This seems to have been someone’s office, most likely someone who was in charge of matters at this company.Phoebe sneezes when she goes further into the room, sparing you a glance. “Sorry, my allergies are still pretty bad this time of year.” You wave it off, and she continues, “since Garfield isn’t in this room, let’s go check the other one.” Although you want to find Garfield as well, you also can’t help but be curious about what could be in the desk. “You go first, I’ll meet up with you later,” you tell her. Phoebe shakes her head. “It’s fine. I can wait for you and we can go over there together,” she says as she turns to join you, pulling open some of the drawers and looking through the items.

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As you look at the papers scattered on the desk, one catches your eye. You pick it up, and you find that it is a letter addressed to the president of the company. When you open one of the drawers, you find more letters, seeming to be a back and forth between an activist against the use of nuclear energy, and the company’s board of directors.The activist, Vincent Bird, described some of the negative aspects of nuclear energy. You flip through a few of the letters, scanning over them.“Although nuclear energy may seem like a better option than other fossil fuels such as coal and oil, the waste from nuclear plants is radioactive and contains dangerous chemicals, such as plutonium and uranium. The disposal of these chemicals is also very tedious.”“We appreciate your concern, but the amount of waste from fossil fuels dwarfs the amount of waste from nuclear power. The chemicals from our plants are safely disposed of strictly according to safety regulations. However, around 90% of the waste from nuclear energy is able to be recycled. Nuclear waste in general is also very dense.”

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“You may be following safety precautions, but you can never be completely certain. Has the world not learned from the events of Fukushima and Chernobyl? You claim that the chances of a nuclear accident are low, but they are never zero. If an accident does happen, who will take responsibility? There are even chances of a nuclear accident being caused by a terrorist group, or during war. Nuclear energy simply isn’t sustainable, not to mention the expensive costs.” “Your points are valid, but there is always a risk involved in all activities. Nuclear energy may be more expensive, but it pays off since they are cheaper to run. You say you care for the environment, yet do not provide any better alternatives. Nuclear energy does not release any greenhouse gas emissions or pollutants into the atmosphere. Wind and solar energy isn’t available nearly as much as nuclear energy is. Yes, nuclear waste is radioactive, but it is a much smaller issue than climate change.”You can understand both of their perspectives, but you almost want to laugh because the world pretty much ended anyway, just with biological weapons instead of nuclear ones. You set the papers down and head over to where Phoebe is so you can check out the other room.

You notice that the handle on the door to the left seems more rusted, as if it had been used more often than the right one. It gives you an eerie feeling that you can’t shake off, but you remind yourself that you’re doing this for Garfield. The room itself seems normal, with many bookshelves arranged in rows next to each other. Before you can go any further, you hear a rustle from behind one of the shelves. Your hand goes to your hatchet, and you notice Phoebe does the same with her weapon. You tense, preparing yourself when you hear the noise drawing nearer to where you are. You squint, and to your relief you see fluffy paws and a cute nose emerging from behind the shelf. “Garfield!” you say excitedly, rushing forward to pet him. He wags his tail and barks, before nudging at yours and Phoebe’s legs, as if he is trying to show you something. “Let’s go Garfield, it’s not safe here.” Phoebe says, slightly pulling at his collar. He seems indignant and barks again, before pulling away and going to the corner of the room. When you find him, he is pawing at a spot in the carpet and looking back at you.

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Is he trying to tell you something? You don’t want to seem delusional, but Garfield isn’t the type to do something like try to dig up a carpet for no reason, or he wouldn’t have survived this long. You move over, hook your flashlight to your belt and start to cut away at the carpet before you start questioning yourself. Phoebe seems a little confused at first but moves to help, pulling away at the carpet that gets stuck together. With the final chunk of the old carpet removed, a compartment with a latch is now visible. Phoebe flicks it open, and two buttons stare back at you. “Wow” you say, unsure of what to do now. Pressing one would be the most cliche thing to do, but the idea of what could be behind it sparks a bit of excitement in you. You turn to Phoebe to ask, “Should we press one?” “Beats me. There isn’t a label or anything, so it would be a really bad idea but I also want to know what they’re for as well.” “Is it ok if I pick one?” You say. “Sure.” She responds with a shrug.

next

• Press left button

• Leave the nuclear plant

• Press right button

Will you pick a button, or do you decide to leave?

choose

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You take a closer look at the buttons again before pressing the button on the left. Your eyes shut in anticipation of what might happen, but nothing does. Phoebe looks at you and says, “Nothing happened? Maybe the button used electricity and it no longer works.” As soon as she stops talking, the tiles groan, and you manage to look up just in time as the ceiling crashes down on top of you with a plume of dust and a loud crack. A huge chunk of cement hits your head, and you go dizzy as you fall onto your back, ending up pinned under the huge debris. Before you go unconscious, you wonder if you should’ve left when you had the chance, and desperately hope that Phoebe and Garfield somehow managed to make their way out of the rubble.

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restart

play again?

You died

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Your hand hovers over the left button before you quickly change your mind and press down on the button on the right. At first, nothing happens, and you hear Phoebe say “Nothing happened? Maybe the button used electricity and it no longer works.” However, as soon as she says that, the bookshelf behind you groans and starts to sink under the ground. You and Phoebe look at each other in shock, and Garfield barks again, sniffing near the hole where the bookshelf used to be. The bookshelf has turned into a staircase that leads to something below the plant. “You only live once, I guess?” You say as you start to go down the stairs. Your footsteps seem to echo in the room, and you try to ignore the way your goosebumps come up the farther down you go. When you near the end of the stairs, you see a faint blue glow up ahead, and the lights flicker on. You are about to ask Phoebe how the lights could possibly be working but the sight in front of you makes your mouth go dry.

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You hear Phoebe gasp from behind you, and you freeze in your footsteps. You stand in a huge room that you can barely see the end of, with sleek walls and a futuristic design. Most importantly, there are two rows on the sides of the room of tall jars with a blueish liquid in them. Inside each of the jars is what seems to be a person, but when you take a look, you feel sick to your stomach. They appear to be the people who have fallen victim to the virus that wiped out much of the human population, seemingly sleeping.Phoebe pulls at your sleeve. “I don’t know what this is but I definitely don’t want to find out. Let’s get out of here.” You have never wanted to run from somewhere as much as you do right now, and you gesture for Garfield to follow.When you throw one last glance behind you, you feel your blood run cold when the person in the jar closest to you slowly turns their head to look straight at you, eyes unseeing.

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restart

you got out with Phoebe and garfield, but can't forget what you saw in that room...

You escaped

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You decide that the dangers of pressing a button are just too much, and you decide not to press either of them. “It’s not worth it, we already got Garfield. Let’s just leave.” Phoebe nods. “It probably wasn’t anything anyway, and I’m getting weirded out by this place.” The three of you get out of the plant as the sun is setting, and you head back to your hideout to get some rest after this tiring day, happy that Garfield is back by your side.

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you got out with Phoebe and garfield!

You escaped

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You think that Garfield might be near the reactor, so you start heading in that direction. The cylinders seem larger and more intimidating the closer you get. “We should split up, there’s a lot of reactors and we’ll be able to find Garfield faster.” Phoebe says, and you agree. You decide to go to a reactor slightly farther out, but still relatively close to Phoebe in case something happens.

As you look around, you find a poster attached to a wall near the reactor. “WASTE MANAGEMENT” is written across the top in big, bold letters. “Very little waste is generated from nuclear plants, and an even smaller amount of this waste is high-level waste. This high-level radioactive waste will decay to safe levels within a few hundred years. Even if a nuclear health repository had a leak, the amount of radiation would be no more than the amount in the natural environment.” “Radioactive waste is often isolated or diluted so that the concentration will be low enough to where it is harmless if released into the biosphere. Used nuclear fuel, which is high-level waste, is first kept in wet storage to cool. It is then kept in water or moved to dry storage before being recycled or disposed of. The permanent solutions, however, are recycling or direct disposal.”

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“Most of the material in used fuel can be recycled, especially uranium. Plutonium and uranium are elements that can be reused in conventional reactors. The other option is direct disposal, where nuclear fuel is disposed of in an underground respiratory. The fuel is placed in canisters, which are then placed in tunnels and sealed with rocks and clay. The waste from recycling used fuel is also similarly disposed of.” You walk away from the poster to look for Phoebe, and you find her standing next to a reactor. She turns to you, saying, “I think I saw something around the corner.” As she speaks, you see a shadow emerging from the side of the reactor. You grab her arm and pull her back, your heart hammering away in your chest. “Should we look and try to figure out what that thing is or should we run?” you whisper-yell to Phoebe, and you can see the figure almost emerging into view. She seems to want to run, slowly backing away. Will you run or will you take a look at what the shadow is?

Look

Run

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You trust Phoebe, so you push her slightly to signal that you’re going to run with her. You both take off, your legs burning with the strain as you go as fast as you can across the concrete, trying not to trip over random pieces of debris in the parking lot. “There!” Phoebe shouts, pointing at the office building. You look behind you and notice that nobody seems to be behind you, and you slowly come to a halt. You take out your water bottle and drink some, trying to catch your breath. “Whatever that thing was, I’m glad it didn’t chase us.” You tell Phoebe despite your heavy breathing. Phoebe responds, “Yeah. We still haven’t found Garfield though, maybe we should break in here and take a look?”

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Despite your gut feelings screaming at you to run away and not look back, there’s still a possibility of the thing coming closer being Garfield. You take out your weapon just in case, but you are unprepared when you come face-to-face with someone who looks like they have been infected with the disease that killed much of the population. You and Phoebe call them zombies, although they don’t eat brains, but lose control of their nervous system instead. Their eyes are clouded over, and the smell of sickness overpowers your nose. Your reflexes kick in and you swing your hatchet just as the zombie lets out a guttural scream and bites down on your arm. You managed to hit the zombie’s torso, but your hatchet remains lodged and you can’t pull it out. You fumble, trying to grab your switchblade from your belt as the pain in your arm grows worse and worse, the zombie stubbornly hanging on even when you repeatedly kick at it.

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Phoebe screams and smashes the baseball bat into the side of the zombie’s head with the sickening crunch of bone breaking, and the zombie’s eyes roll over. The impact jolts your arm as the zombie is forced to let go, and you see the imprint that its teeth left in your arm. You gasp when you notice that some of the zombie’s blood landed on the injury, and you realize that you will soon succumb to the disease, just like the zombie. Phoebe shoves the zombie to the ground and rushes over to you, her eyes watery when she notices the bite wound on your arm. “Sorry, we should’ve run like you wanted.” You tell her, wincing as a little bit of blood trickles out of your bite wound. “You should try to find Garfield as fast as possible and then leave.” She nods, taking one last look at you before stepping back and running off, leaving you waiting for your inevitable doom.

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restart

you turned into a zombie and eventually perished..

You died

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The parking lot seems like a good place to start, so you and Phoebe decide to explore it first. The parking lot is mostly empty, but there are a few rusted cars with broken windows and dulled paint. The wind picks up, and leaves rush by your feet. A brochure of some sort is blown from under an old pickup truck, and you pick it up to take a look. Somehow, it has remained mostly intact, and you are still able to read what it says despite the faded print. Phoebe comes up behind you, peeking over your shoulder. “What’s that?”“Looks like a brochure for visitors of this plant or something.” You sit down next to the old pickup truck for cover, and Phoebe sits down next to you. You hold the brochure between the two of you and wipe the grime off the part of your gas mask covering your eyes so that you can read the small text better. “Nuclear energy comes from nuclear fission, which is when the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller nuclei, releasing energy in the process. This is typically done with uranium atoms. When the nucleus of a uranium atom is hit by a neutron, it will split into smaller nuclei, as well as a few neutrons. These neutrons will then hit adjacent uranium atoms, which will also split and generate more neutrons, creating a chain reaction. With each reaction comes a release of heat energy and radiation.”

“Nuclear power produces more electricity on less land. For example, a 1000-megawatt nuclear facility in the United States needs a little more than 1 mile^2. For a wind farm to produce the same amount of electricity, it would require 360 times more land, and a solar photovoltaic plant requires 75 times more land.”

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“Nuclear power comes from generating power through nuclear fission. The heat released by fission is used to create steam that spins a turbine to generate electricity without the harmful byproducts emitted by fossil fuels.” You flip the brochure over to find some “fun facts."

You hear the footsteps of a group of people, making you look up from the brochure. Phoebe seems to notice too, and the two of you duck behind the tires of the pickup truck. Their voices become louder as they approach closer to where you are hiding. Should you and Phoebe run or wait it out?

hide

Run

You and Phoebe stay as still as you can behind the pickup. You hear your heavy breathing, which seems to be amplified inside your gas mask. Despite your fear, you can’t help but try to listen to what the people are saying. Thankfully, they don’t seem to be too aware of their surroundings and are talking loud enough for you to hear.“Do you think this place would work as our hideout? It looks pretty good from the outside,” You hear someone say.Another voice speaks up, “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve said, and you’ve said a lot of dumb things. This looks like an old nuclear plant.”“Yeah, but it’s old and probably not radioactive or else we would be sick already. Also, nobody else would be dumb enough to come here.” (Except you and Phoebe, apparently) This time, a new person speaks, “Have you heard about Fukushima? Basically, there was an accident at a nuclear power plant before in a power plant in Japan. A tsunami caused the cooling systems in the plant to shut down, and heat from the reactor caused the fuel to overheat and melt down. Some of the melted fuel made holes in the floor, and then there were explosions due to hydrogen gas. This caused the government to designate an evacuation zone from radiation and fallout.”

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“Wow.. I haven’t heard about that one but I’ve heard about Chernobyl before, “ the first voice says.“Yeah, that one was because of a problem in the reactor design and inadequately trained personnel. The design of the reactor is different from other reactors though, so it doesn’t really apply to other nuclear plants.” The third person says again.As they are speaking, Phoebe gestures to the direction of the reactor, and you nod. The people behind the car seem to be leaving as well. Once their footsteps fade away, you and Phoebe search the rest of the parking lot for Garfield but find no traces of him. You go somewhere else to continue the search.

next

Split up

stay together

You and Phoebe both start to move away from behind the pickup before getting up and running away, ducking behind cars for cover. You hear a shout from the group of people behind you, adrenaline rushing through your veins. “Do we split up or stay together?” you say, your breathing uneven. “I’m going to go to the reactors, come with me if you want.” Phoebe yells. Are you going to go with her to the reactors, or are you going to go in a different direction?

You think that splitting up would be a bad idea, so you follow her, hoping that the people behind you either give up or don’t have any ranged weapons. When you eventually get away from the parking lot, you don’t see them anymore, and you allow yourself to slow down. You still need to look for Garfield, despite your weariness. However, you can’t help but be afraid of what else could be in this plant. Should you continue, or should you and Phoebe leave the abandoned nuclear plant?

leave

continue

You feel sad that you haven’t found Garfield, but at least you and Phoebe are both still alive. Perhaps you can come back again another day and look for him again, but you don’t have enough energy to do so right now.

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Learn more

restart

you and phoebe returned the next day, but garfield was nowhere to be found,,

You left

You think that you and Phoebe should split up, so you run in the opposite direction of where she is heading. You keep running until you can’t hear the footsteps anymore, but then you realize in horror that that means the group all went to chase after Phoebe.By the time you retrace your steps and locate where Phoebe went, it’s too late. You can’t bear to look at her limp body anymore, so you leave the nuclear plant and try to leave it in the past.

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Learn more

restart

You go back to your hideout without phoebe or garfield and question your decisions..

You left

Waste management

background infomration

Sources

in the future

History

Pros/cons

so ms elmore doesn't have to dig through every choice to find the required info

menu

Fukushima/Chernobyl

Future

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Sustainabile development is development that responsibly uses resources without negatively impacting those in the future. Sustainable development is a very important topic, and there are two main parts to it: reducing harmful emissions and also making energy more widely available.When people think about harmful emissions, they often think about greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned, which is currently the primary source of energy. Nuclear energy will be especially important in the future for sustainable development, but it still needs to be expanded. Nuclear energy will be able to provide affordable and sustainable energy for more people due to its density.Demand for water and food rises with the demand for electricity, and policies on one section can't be considered alone. Nuclear plants provide the same amount of energy on less land, although more water may be required due to the cooling systems.In the future, nuclear energy will be very useful as long as waste is disposed of properly and safety regulations are followed to prevent nuclear accidents.

Sources

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Nuclear power:https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-is-nuclear-energy-the-science-of-nuclear-powerhttps://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-powerWaste:https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspxhttps://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear-waste-and-what-do-we-do-with-it.aspxPros/Cons:https://earth.org/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-nuclear-energy/fukushima/Chernobyl:https://www.britannica.com/event/Fukushima-accidenthttps://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspxFuture:https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/nuclear-energy-and-sustainable-development.aspxOther:https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/nuclear-energy-and-sustainable-development.aspxhttps://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power-in-a-clean-energy-systemhttps://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/safety-of-nuclear-power-reactors.aspxhttps://www.nei.org/advantages/sustainable-developmenthttps://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/03/24/is-nuclear-power-a-renewable-or-a-sustainable-energy-source/?sh=281f22ee656ehttps://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-reasons-why-nuclear-clean-and-sustainable#:~:text=Nuclear%20is%20a%20zero%2Demission,byproducts%20emitted%20by%20fossil%20fuels.

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