Nuclear Power essays

Nuclear Power essays Nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction which the atomic nucleus breaks up into tiny fragments, usually two fragments of the same size, letting off around 100 million to several hundred million volts of energy. This energy is place accordingly to form a really big and violent explosion. The idea of the atom has been around for several centuries, it has also been thought that the ideas were first there from the Greek philosophers. But it has been quite recent when mankind started to learn and understand the massive power placed in this small atomic mass. It was around the time of World War 2 when nuclear scientists focused mainly on a way to create nuclear weapons to be used in the time when size, money and weapons matter to protect their country. They came up with nuclear fission and fusion. After the war, scientists started concentrating on peaceful and more useful ways to use this nuclear technology to help benefit the people and contributed to the advancing society. After years of study and research, scientists have successfully applied the nuclear technology to plenty other scientific, medical, and industrial style purposes. You can see on the map below the main nuclear areas. Science of a Nuclear Fission Reaction When nucleus fissions, it divides into two main fragments. These fragments, are pretty much equal to half of the original mass. Two or three neutrons are also given off and so the whole process starts again. This is visible in the diagram below. For this explanation the radioisotope Uranim-235 will be used. The Uranium-235 nucleus (also described as U-235) absorbs a thermal neutron, which creates a compound nucleus U-236 in a very excited form. It is actually the U-236, which takes part in the fission process, splitting into two fragments. These fragments, between them, give off two neutrons, leaving Xe-140 and Sr-94 as the fission fragments. This is the final fission equation for the reaction The two fragment...