What Is nuclear energy?

Above -The international symbol for radioactivity.

Nuclear energy comes from releasing energy locked inside the nuclear structure of molecules. In the nuclear structure, an atom is made up of an extremely small, positively charged nucleus which is surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.

Refer to the “atomic diagram” at the website:
http://www.lbl.gov/abc/Basic.html

The nucleus consists of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons, which are held together by a strong nuclear force. The atomic mass of an element is the sum of the protons and neutrons in its nucleus. The atomic number of an element is equal to the number of protons in its nucleus. At present, there are 112 known elements (each with a different atomic number), ranging from the lightest element, which is hydrogen (with an atomic number of 1 and an atomic mass of 1), to iron (atomic number 26, atomic mass 56) to uranium (atomic number 92, atomic mass 238) and beyond. Elements above atomic number 96 generally do not exist naturally on earth. They have been synthetically produced, often having only the briefest existence before decomposing into other particles.

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