Nuclear Power - A Short History
Nuclear fission is the splitting of the nuclei of (normally) very heavy or unstable elements (normally heavier than iron), resulting in a release of large amounts of energy as well as the unstable, radioactive isotopes of lighter elements, as well as any logical number of neutrons. For uranium 235, the most abundant usable fuel present in nature, the number of neutrons released is about 2.4 per atom, and the energy released is about 215 MeV per atom (Example, nd), or about
215 MeV * 6.02*10^23 235U * 1000 g * joule
235U 1 * g * Kg * MeV * 1.602*10-13
= 8.05*10^15 joule or 8.05 petajoule per kilogram of uranium 235
However, uranium is not found in natural concentrations of more than 0.7% of any given amount of uranium; in order to efficiently obtain energy from uranium, one must "enrich" the uranium, or concentrate the usable isotopes (Uranium, nd).
Leo Szilard, a Hungarian scientist who had recently escaped Berlin for London, first entertained the idea of a chain-reaction of radioactive isotopes in 1933 (Szilárd, 2006); he patented his idea in 1936 in the U.K., and shared a patent with Enrico Fermi in the United States. Later, Otto Hahn and Fritz Stressmann, along with Lise Mietner and her nephew Otto Frisch, discovered fission when Hahn and Stressmann bombarded uranium with neutrons, resulting in the emission of a few smaller atoms in addition to neutrons and energy; Mietner and Frisch interpreted the resulting energy and atoms as being the results of fission of the uranium atoms' nuclei ("History," Georgia State University, nd); this fission resulted in huge amounts of energy per reaction (on the order of 200 mega electron-volts per atom of uranium 235). In 1942 and after deciding that ura...
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What Nuclear power has the ability to do is get a lot of power in a little amount of space. “Roughly 1.6 billion people live without access to electricity, and 2.4 billion rely on traditional biomass because they have no access to modern fuel.” (General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei) With nuclear power put into these countries that are without power we can have it to where electricity will be accessibility to everyone. By having power accessible to everyone we can accomplish so much more and unlock more possibilities in our world today.
When the released neutrons attach to other isotopes of Uranium 235, this can result in a chain reaction of fission. For every generation of fission, the amount of fission is doubled, and this results in an extreme outburst of energy. The amount of energy released by this process is related to Einstein’s famous equation “E=mc2” (Wolf). Einstein's equation "E=mc2" has two sides, which are constructive and destructive. The constructive side is when energy is converted into mass, and the destructive side is when a small amount of mass is converted into energy.
Physicists found out that among the pieces of a split atom were newly produced neutrons. These might encounter other uranium nuclei, cause them to split, and start a chain reaction. If the chain reaction was limited to a moderate pace, a new source of energy could be the result. The chain reaction could release energy rapidly and with explosive force. Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicists, were frightened by the possibility that Germany might produce an atomic bomb.
Nuclear energy must be a consideration for the future with the rapidly depleting supply of fossil fuels. This type of energy can be created through nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Nuclear fission is the splitting of a heavy atom into two or more parts, releasing huge amounts of energy. The release of energy can be controlled and captured for generating electricity. Nuclear fusion involves bombarding hydrogen atoms together to form helium. In the long run, nuclear fusion has greater potential than fission.
According to Merriam-Webster, nuclear fission is defined as “the splitting of an atomic nucleus resulting in the release of large amounts of energy” (Nuclear Fission). In the book Remembering the Manhattan Project: Perspectives on the Making of the Atomic Bomb and Its Legacy, Richard Rhodes, an American journalist and historian, states that fission was essentially discovered by accident. On December 21, 1938, German physicists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, were performing an experiment in which they bombarded uranium atoms with neutrons (Rhodes 17). They saw that this procedure created mutated atoms that had strange characteristics. Hahn and Strassman found that the neutrons split the nuclei of the uranium in half producing radioactive barium and krypton (Rhodes 18). Rhodes explains that the physicists observed that the reaction was extremely exothermic, producing about ten times the energy needed for the fission to occur. After publishing their findings, physicists all over the world recreated the experiment. After conducting his own fission experiment, Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist at Colombia University, said, “A little bomb like that and it would all disappear” (qtd. Rhodes 19). Many of the world’s physicists came to the same conclusion; this reaction could be used to develop an atomic weapon. According to Rhodes, this discovery made the development of atomic weaponry seem essential to many countries because the only way to defend themselves against atomic weapons was to have similar weapons of their own.
The Cold War is famous not only for its long engagement between the two super powers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but also because of the heightened physical tension that nuclear power brought to the global stage. Winning the war at the cost of human annihilation was not abnormal political conversation, and from the 1940s onward, fear of global destruction became a daily concern (Granieri, 2011). The circumstances of the Cold War made it different than previous international conflicts because it was the first conflict that could potentially lead to massive, worldwide destruction. Without the dangers of nuclear power, the Cold War wouldn't have differed much from previous historical conflicts between powerful states.
It was Italian-born physicist and Nobel winner Enrico Fermi, and his colleagues at the University of Chicago who were responsible for this success (“Nuclear”).
The main parties who is associated with the debate are governments, experts, and the country people. These people have given out their opinions regarding the effects of nuclear ene...
Nuclear power has always been a controversial issue because of its inherent danger and the amount of waste that the plants produce. Once considered a relatively safe form for generating energy, nuclear power has caused more problems than it has solved. While it has reduced the amount of traditional natural resources (fossil fuels), used to generate power like coal, wood, and oil, nuclear generating plants have become anachronisms. Maintaining them and keeping them safe has become a problem of immense proportion. As the plants age and other technology becomes available, what to do with these “eyesores” is a consuming issue for many government agencies and environmental groups. No one knows what to do about the problem and in many areas of the world, another nuclear meltdown is an accident waiting to happen. Despite a vast array of safety measures, a break in reactor pipe or a leak in a containment vessel, could spell another environmental disaster for the world.
U-235, an isotope of Uranium, can be used in a fission bomb due to the fact that when its nucleus splits it gives off additional neutrons which may hit other uranium nuclei, causing them to split. This then creates a chain reaction and is why only small masses of uranium are required to release substantial amounts of energy (Bitesize, 2017). The most infamous example of how uranium has been used in this way, is the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima (Atomic Heritage Foundation, n.d.). The same properties that allow uranium to be used in a bomb, are valued in the world of nuclear energy. Nuclear power stations use energy from uranium to produce electricity and this production accounts for approximately 11 percent of the world’s electricity (Environmental protection Agency, 2016). Such uses are the main drivers for uranium exports and support the uranium industry in Australia, influencing social, economic and political aspects of
Uranium, a radioactive element, was first mined in the western United States in 1871 by Dr. Richard Pierce, who shipped 200 pounds of pitchblende to London from the Central City Mining District. This element is sorta boring but I found something interesting, they used it to make an an atomic bomb in the Cold War. In 1898 Pierre and Marie Curie and G. Bemont isolated the "miracle element" radium from pitchblende. That same year, uranium, vanadium and radium were found to exist in carnotite, a mineral containing colorful red and yellow ores that had been used as body paint by early Navajo and Ute Indians on the Colorado Plateau. The discovery triggered a small prospecting boom in southeastern Utah, and radium mines in Grand and San Juan counties became a major source of ore for the Curies. It was not the Curies but a British team working in Canada which was the first to understand that the presence of polonium and radium in pitchblende was not due to simple geological and mineral reasons, but that these elements were directly linked to uranium by a process of natural radioactive transmutation. The theory of radioactive transformation of elements was brilliantly enlarge in1901 by the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford and the English chemist Frederick Soddy at McGill University in Montreal. At dusk on the evening of November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Rontgen, professor of physics at the University of Wurzburg in Germany, noticed a cathode tube that a sheet of paper come distance away. He put his hand between the tube and the paper, he saw the image of the bones in his hand on the paper.
energy out of a nuclear reaction than we put in. First, the energy per fission
There are two main types of nuclear reactors used in the world, Pressurized Water Reactors, known as PWR’s, and Boiling Water Reactors, known as BWR’s. The former is more complicated and thusly more safe and more commonly used, while the latter presents several unnecessary hazards and is quickly being phased out of usage (Duke, n.d.). In both systems, reactions take place inside of a reaction chamber located within a co...
Nuclear power, the use of exothermic nuclear processes to produce an enormous amount of electricity and heat for domestic, medical, military and industrial purposes i.e. “By the end of 2012 2346.3 kilowatt hours (KWh) of electricity was generated by nuclear reactors around the world” (International atomic energy agency Vienna, 2013, p.13). However, with that been said it is evident that the process of generating electricity from a nuclear reactor has numerous health and environmental safety issues.
Nuclear energy is generated by a process called fission. Fission occurs within the reactor of a nuclear power plant when a neutron is fired at an atom of uranium causing it to split and release subsequent neutrons.1 These are able to crash into other uranium atoms causing a chain reaction and releasing a great deal of heat energy.