Ask Yourself: Do The Risks Outweigh The Rewards?

             In all types of nuclear power plants, one of the base fuels that they use is the radio active element Uranium. Although other types of radioactive fuels can be used in nuclear power, this is one of the base ones that is used in many reactors. Uranium-238 is the most common isotope of Uranium, composing over 99% of the Uranium on the planet. Uranium-235 is the isotope of Uranium used in the nuclear reactor to produce energy. As uranium decays, it projects neutrons out from the nucleus as a byproduct of the decay. These neutrons contact the nuclei of U-235, and this nucleus reacts with the neutron, and splits, releasing energy as well as two to three more neutrons. This process continues, the neutrons released during the splitting contacting other U-235 nucleuses, causing more fissions (splitting of the nuclei).

        In many of the modern day nuclear reactors enriched uranium, which contains 3 to 5 percent of U-235 instead of the regular 0.7% that natural Eranium contained. The problem with this is that processing natural Uranium to achieve enriched Uranium is not a clean process that has many harmful side products. Not only this, but enriched Uranium can be used for atomic weapons if it falls into unwanted hands.

    Enriched Uranium     

Citations

1. http://transitionculture.org/category/technology/page/3/

2. http://www.oxfordreference.com/pages/VED_samples

3. http://www.answers.com/topic/uranium-enrichment

4. http://www.techscoop.com.au/2006-05/

Enrichment Process

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