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A nuclear power plant is a facility that converts atomic energy into usable power. In a nuclear electric power plant, heat produced by a reactor is generally used to drive a turbine which in turn drives an electric generator. Due to the unstable nature of nuclear reactors, nuclear power plants have been the subject of controversy. The incident in 2011 for example, when three Fukushima Daiichi reactors melted due to faults in their power supply and cooling, served as an indication to many, of the dire consequences that dependency on nuclear power plants could result in. Apart from the dangerous nature and extensive maintenance required to operate nuclear power plants, they are also heavily contested due to the fact that they run on increasingly rare and radioactive Uranium. Uranium mining as well as the disposal of it (and other by-products of nuclear power production) is detrimental to the environment, as they are radioactive. <ref>Glossary of Environment Statistics, Studies in Methods, Series F, No. 67, United Nations, New York, 1997.</ref>