Nuclear power and physics

During the 30s and 40s of the last century atomic physicists discovered the fission of uranium nuclei bombarded by neutrons and realized the first self-sustaining controlled fission chain reaction, which ushered in the atomic age. After 50 years of electricity production, in 2003nuclear power plants were generating 16% of the total electricity in the world. Of these, thermal neutron reactors make up over 99%. For the large scale production of nuclear power , say up to hundreds of GWe, it is very important to speed up the development and deployment of fast breeder reactors to avoid the future lack of uranium resources.