Introduction
In today’s day and age many people around the world have become dependent on what seems like useless or needless things such as the internet and television. This is one of the negative effects of science and the technology that comes with it. Some of these technologies seem harmless, like cellphones and computers, but it seems as the years progress people want more and more power, literally and figuratively. The element uranium is a perfect example; this element has the power to do well in generating power for millions of people, and the power to do wrong in nuclear warfare.
The earth is made up of roughly 111 elements and combinations thereof, but only around 90 of the elements occur naturally. In 1789 Martin Klaproth discovered a new element and decided to name it after the newly discovered planet Uranus (Zoellner, 2009). This element called uranium is lithophilic and is the last natural element on the periodic table. It is the 92nd elements, containing 92 protons and an atomic mass of 238.0 grams (Cox, 1995). Uranium comes from the ores of uranite, canotite, and is present in only low concentrations of igneous rocks, such as granite. Uranium can also be seen in some glazes of pottery, as well as in the metals of armor-piercing weapons. This element also contains an extremely long half-life of over four billion years. This means that a majority of the uranium on earth today, is the exact same uranium that was present in the makings of the Earth (Cox, 1995; Thomson, 1963).
Uranium has multiple isotopes, the most common isotope is uranium-238, and with uranium-235 being the most popular, but less abundant. Surprisingly, uranium is not necessary for the sustainability of life, and is not chemically toxic (Cox, ...
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...wer is put in the wrong hands, such as that of terrorists, and people who do not quite understand its properties. If used unwisely it could be the cause of the destruction of life itself.
Works Cited
Cox, P.A. (1995). The Elements on Earth: Inorganic Chemistry in the Environment. New York: Oxford University Press.
EMSPAK, J. (2014). CERAMICS COULD PREVENT NUCLEAR DISASTER. Popular Science, 028.
Garwin, R. (2013). NUCLEAR ENERGY. New Scientist, 218(2919), 18.
Scerri, Eric R. (2007). The Periodic Table: Its story and significance. New York: Oxford University Press.
Seaborg, Eric. (2001). Adventures in the Atomic Age: From Watts to Washington. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.
Thomson, Sir George. (1963). The Atom. New York: Oxford University Press.
Zoellner, Tom. (2009). Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock that Shaped the World. New York: Penguin Group.
Seventy-one years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear power is rarely recognized as a solution to the energy crisis. Instead, it is associated with the most violent pits of Hell: warfare. The demands of warfare exhaust the scientific community and deplete its resources, as well as decimating the human population.
...nce World War II to the present day, the technology of nuclear power has increased significantly in terms of energy output and safety. The energy efficiency of nuclear power is far superior to its counterpart fossil fuel and renewable energy. Compared to fossil fuels, tiny amounts of fuel used by nuclear reactors is equivalent to a large sum of coal. This is a no brainer. Why mine a ton of coal when a little uranium can be used to gain the same amount of energy? Not only is it efficient, it’s safe to use. Used fuel is packed away in storage safely, so there isn’t any chance of radiation leaking out. In the present day, nuclear power incidents haven’t been occurring lately. Advancements in technology and equipment used have made nuclear energy a very reliable and safe source of energy. With today’s energy needs, nuclear power has the ability to keep up in the race.
Between U-235 and U-238, which one contains more natural uranium, and how can the 2 be separated to obtain pure U-235?
supplied by the uranium in sea water for 7 million years(Energy 25). This is a
Astatine (85At) and Francium (87Fr) are both rare elements found in nature, and are highly radioactive. Astatine was produced by Dale R. Carson, K.R. MacKenzie and Emilio Segrè, by accelerating Bismuth ions in a device called “Cyclotron”, but also found in the waste uranium. Francium was discovered by Marguerite Catherine Perey, a French chemist in 1939, and it is found in its purest form in nature, but is really scarce in the Earth’s crust.
Mining for elements that could be used as a nuclear power were very important in the Cold War. New technology and research for nuclear material was an essential part in building a nuclear weapon. The most important element for making nuclear weapons is uranium. Uranium is used to make plutonium, a very powerful element, by deuteron bombardment of uranium oxide. Uranium, a gray-colored element, is mined from the common uranium ores. Common isotopes, such as, radioactive sulfur (S35), radioactive carbon (C14), radioactive phosphorus (P32) and strontium (Sr90) were a great safety hazard towards the environment and mammals. The amount of time it takes for half the radioactive isotope to disintegrate is called half-life. "Isotopes with a short half-life, measured in seconds, hours, or days, are considered generally less dangerous to the envioronment2." Isotopes with a high half-life are very harmful to our world; for example, plutonium in one of its forms (Pu239) has a half-life of over 20,000 years. There is so much heat given off that, in power reactors, the heat is used to generate electricity. These nuclear elements, mainly plutonium, was used to make the most destructive weapons ever to be built: nuclear missiles.
Radon is highly unreactive with oxygen, acids and bases. The element is soluble in water. Radon is not produced commercially. Radon is a natural occurring radioactive gas, and comes from the natural breakdown of Uranium. It is found in igneous rock and soil. Radon’s decay products are toxic and radioactive. It can be found in almost all homes and is the number one cause of lung-cancer in nonsmokers in the USA. Radon was used to treat cancer by radiotherapy, but now safer treatments are available. Also, radon is used in spas and an earthquake predictor and geothermal prospector. Radon’s crustal abundance is 4 x 10-13 mg/kg and its oceanic abundance is 6 x 10-16 mg/l. If Radon is inhaled it can cause more than lung cancer, such as silicosis, pulmonary fibrosis and can generate genotoxic effects. Radon-222 and Radon-220 are the only to abundantly found in the everyday life of humans. Radon-222 occurs most in the environment. Radon is the only gas that has radioactive isotopes and poses a threat to your health to the environment in it’s normal state. According to “Radon” Radon was the fifth radioactive element to be discovered. In 1530, miner’s begin getting a disease known as “mala metallorum” which was later found that Radon was the
in the eyes of many, is as risky and potentially hazardous as atomic energy: it
It is not uncommon to find a group of school aged children playing at a playground or neighborhood park. Now imagine that you are playing a friendly game of four-square with your classmates one minute and the next minute, everyone is gone. A massive explosion caused by a strange object falling from the sky. What could possible cause such an extreme disaster? A chemical reaction caused by the isotope of the element Uranium known as Uranium-235. The isotope Uranium-235, which only makes up a small fraction of natural uranium, changed the scope of nuclear disasters from a small scale to a global disaster (Uranium-235).
Uranium has provided many benefits for life on Earth and also put life in very dangerous situations. This
Uranium was discovered by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German chemist, in the mineral pitchblende (primarily a mix of uranium oxides) in 1789.Klaproth, as well as the rest of the scientific community, believed that the substance he extracted from pitchblende was pure uranium, it was actually uranium dioxide (UO2). After noticing that 'pure' uranium reacted oddly with uranium tetrachloride (UCl4), Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896 when Antoine Henri Becquerel, a French physicist, detected it from a sample of uranium. Today, uranium is obtained from uranium ores such as pitchblende, uraninite , carnotite and autunite as well as from phosphate rock , lignite (brown coal) and monazite sand . Since there is little demand for uranium metal, uranium is usually sold in the form of sodium diuranate , also known as yellow cake, or triuranium octoxide).
Carbon, Max W. Nuclear Power: Villain or Victim?: Our Most Misunderstood Source of Electricity. Second ed. Madison, WI: Pebble Beach, 1997.
Through the generations, technology has propelled the human race into the future. Advancements in technology have surpassed the expectations of our founding forefathers. Technology has pushed the limits of typical modern thinking and tremendously broadened the horizons of rational human beings. From cave dwellers, barely being able to survive, to astronauts landing on the moon, technology has made this advancement possible. However, advancements in technology and new inventions do not always positively affect humans. The invention of the atomic bomb, however useful in its time, has led to many unexpected consequences, and it is for these reasons that this is an invention that we can live without.
The use of nuclear energy has increased in the United States since 1973. Nuclear energy's share of U.S. electricity generation has grown from 4 percent in 1973 to 19 percent in 1998. This is excellent news for the environment. Nuclear energy and hydropower are the cleanest large-scale means of electricity production. Since nuclear power plants do not burn fuel, they emit no combustion byproducts—like carbon dioxide—into the atmosphere (www.nei.org). Nuclear power can come from the fission of Uranium, plutonium or thorium or the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Today uranium (U-235 and U-238) is most commonly used in the production of nuclear energy. The expa...
In 2007, the world consumed 5.3 billion tons of coal, 31.1 billion tons of oil, 2.92 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and 65,000 tons of uranium. All of these energy needs could have been met with only 6,600 tons of thorium, an abundant, slightly radioactive element found in the Earth’s crust.