The unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan has called attention to nuclear-power production in the world. Though the United States has more reactors than any other country by several dozen, no single site (besides one) is especially big. The global march toward nuclear power can't be stopped. There are approximately 440 nuclear reactors in operation around the world. There are another 62 under construction. Another 158 have made it through the planning stages and are waiting to be built. And, finally, another 324 reactors have been proposed. That's over 540 reactors that planners intend to have up and running by 2030. China intends to have almost 200 by then, making up about one-fifth of the world's nuclear reactors.
As the world waits to see if Japan can avoid nuclear catastrophe, some facts men should know about nuclear power are listed below.

1.The first thing men should know about nuclear power is that Fukushima Daiichi will most likely not impact the global march toward nuclear power. This is one steam train that can't be stopped.

2- Nuclear power is only one-third efficient
More precisely, nuclear reactors operate at around 33% efficiency, losing twice that amount in heat waste, which is carried away by coolant water. Nuclear power is a modern spin on an old idea: the steam engine. Burn a fuel in an enclosed space and allow the steam to force the movement of pistons, which creates energy. Instead of shoveling coal into a fire to produce steam, nuclear reactors use fission to split enriched uranium atoms in a self-sustaining chain reaction that heats the rods containing the fuel to high temperatures, which turn the water surrounding them into the steam that forces the pistons. Maintaining a constant temperature using coolant water is therefore of utmost importance. Without it, the fuel rods get hotter and hotter, until they make true that awful word -- meltdown.

3- Nuclear power plants are designed to shut down in an earthquake
Another thing men should know about nuclear power is that the reactors are built with multiple safety features to account for any imaginable disaster. And that sometimes this isn't enough. Seismic detectors shut down Fukushima's reactors following the massive offshore earthquake, causing control rods into the reactor to control the fission reaction. But the second part of this safety measure -- circulating water to cool down the fuel rods -- failed to happen because of an ironic mishap -- a power outage. So another safety feature, a diesel generator, kicked in to cool the rods. Then the tsunami hit, which, in the devastation it wreaked, caused the generator to die. A third safety system, which converts steam to water to cool the rods, failed as well because the water level inside the reactor was too low.

4- Coal mining kills more annually than any nuclear catastrophe has

Fossil fuel remains the largest provider of energy in the U.S. U.S. coal miners are six times more likely to die at work than are workers in any other industry, making it one of the deadliest jobs in the country.

5- The fuel for nuclear power is both abundant and unreachable

The last thing men should know about nuclear power is that its source fuel is astonishingly abundant -- and currently beyond our reach. The amount of uranium that can be mined is believed to be enough to last about a century. That ought to give scientists enough time to figure out how to tap the most abundant source of uranium on the planet -- the ocean. Most estimates put the amount of available uranium there at around 4.5 billion tons, or 1,000 times as much as can be found in uranium mines.