Nuclear Power In The Present And Future
During the last century, nuclear power has been established as a reliable source of energy in the major industrialized countries. Nuclear power plants provide about 17 percent of the world's electricity. In the United States, nuclear power supplies about 15 percent of the electricity overall. Although no new plants are scheduled to be built in the United States, nuclear power is growing to be a popular producer of power. It has recently enjoyed a revival in attention and research due to the environmental concerns surrounding current conventional energy sources. Issues of regulation and safety are at the forefront of all discussions involving nuclear power. (Lillington) One of the major concerns is the radioactive waste that is produced during the fission of uranium.
Uranium is an element that was integrated into the planet during the Earth's formation from the dust of shattered stars. It was discovered by Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789 and although Klaproth thought the compound he extracted was pure uranium, it was actually uranium dioxide. Today, uranium is obtained from uranium ores such as pitchblende, uraninite, carnotite, and autunite. It can also be found in phosphate rock, lignite (brown coal) and monazite sand. There three different types of isotopes that can be found: uranium-234, uranium-235 and uranium-238. All three isotopes are radioactive, but uranium-235 is the only fissionable isotope that can be used for nuclear power. (Gagnon)
Uranium-235 makes up about 0.7 percent of the uranium that can be found naturally. It can be used for both nuclear power production and for nuclear bomb production. Uranium-235 decays naturally by alpha radiation and undergoes spontaneous fission a small percentage of the time. But it is its ability to undergo induced fission that makes it a good compound for use in nuclear power. That means if a free neutron runs into a uranium-235 nucleus, the nucleus would absorb the neutron without...
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