Breeder reactors Making more nuclear stuff

Breeder reactors Making more nuclear stuff 

Only the U-235 isotope of uranium is fissionable because it s the only isotope of uranium that produces the excess of neutrons needed to maintain a chain-reaction. The far more plentiful U-238 isotope doesn t produce those extra neutrons. 

Breeder reactors can extend the supply of fissionable fuels for many many years, and they re currently being used in France. But the United States is moving slowly with the construction of breeder reactors because of several problems associated with them. First, they re extremely expensive to build. Second, they produce large amounts of nuclear wastes. And, finally, the plutonium that s produced is much more hazardous to handle than uranium and can easily be used in an atomic bomb. 

Soon after the fission process was discovered, another process, called fusion, was discovered. Fusion is essentially the opposite of fission. In fission, a heavy nucleus is split into smaller nuclei. With fusion, lighter nuclei are fused into a heavier nucleus. 

The fusion process is the reaction that powers the sun. On the sun, in a series of nuclear reactions, four isotopes of hydrogen-1 are fused into a helium-4 with the release of a tremendous amount of energy. Here on earth, two other isotopes of hydrogen are used H-2, called deuterium, and H-3, called tritium. Deuterium is a minor isotope of hydrogen, but it s still relatively abundant. Tritium doesn t occur naturally, but it can easily be produced by bombarding deuterium with a neutron. The fusion reaction is shown in the following equation  

---

Breeder reactors Making more nuclear stuff... 

---