3/21/2023 0 Comments Fission uranium spitsIf fission only caused a nucleus to split and that was the end of it, then generating nuclear energy wouldn’t be possible, because we would have no neutrons to continue the reaction. So there’s a way to make uranium-238 into fissile material, but it takes a neutron. But uranium-238 is cheap and abundant, accounting for 9927 of 10000 atoms of natural uranium. Plutonium-239 is fissile, uranium-238 isn’t. Uranium-238 will transmute into plutonium-239 over the course of a few days if it absorbs a neutron. It’s really too bad that there isn’t some way to release all of that energy from the rest of the uranium, right? Well, it turns out that there is. If the red marbles represented uranium-235 and the white marbles represented uranium-238, then the picture above (taken with my wife’s cake pan) would be a pretty good depiction of how rare uranium-235 is in natural uranium.Īs I mentioned, uranium-235 is the only naturally-occuring fissile material in the world. In 10000 atoms of natural uranium, only 72 of them will be uranium-235. There’s only one naturally occuring fissile material in the world, uranium-235. The second outcome, fission, is the one we’re interested in if we want to generate energy. Either the nucleus will absorb the neutron and spit out a gamma ray, or the nucleus will absorb the neutron and split into two large pieces. When a neutron (either fast or slow) strikes a fissile nucleus, one of two things will happen. In other words, fissile material can not only generate revenue, but can keep generating that golden revenue time after time after time. But its monetary magic doesn’t end there: fissile material has the Midas touch. The energy content in fissile material means that it is worth six times its weight in gold.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |