Uranium nuclear-powered electricity generation using

Similarly, a nuclear-powered electricity generation plant can produce a lot of electricity from a small amount of fuel. Such plants exploit the heat created by fission, using it to boil water and make steam, which then turns the turbine on a generator to produce electricity (Figure 19.11 ). The fission reaction occurs in the nuclear core of the power plant. The core consists of uranium fuel rods—enriched to about 3.5% U-235— interspersed between retractable neutron-absorbing control rods. When the control rods... 

Commercial nuclear power is generated by nuclear fission reactions. When slow-moving neutrons strike nuclei of uranium-2 3 5 or plutonium-239, these nuclei are split, releasing energy. The energy is used to heat water and drive a turbine, in turn producing electrical energy. Currently nuclear power supplies more than 16 percent of the world s total electricity. 

In Germany in 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, skeptical of claims by Enrico Fermi and Irene Johot-Curie that bombardment of uranium by neutrons produced new so-called transuranic elements (elements beyond uranium), repeated these experiments and chemically isolated a radioactive isotope of barium. Unable to interpret these findings, Hahn asked Lise Meitner, a physicist and former colleague, to propose an explanation for his observations. Meitner and her nephew, Otto Frisch, showed that it was possible for the uranium nucleus to be spfit into two smaller nuclei by the neutrons, a process that they termed fission. The discovery of nuclear fission eventually led to the development of nuclear weapons and, after World War II, the advent of nuclear power to generate electricity. Nuclear chemists were involved in the chemical purification of plutonium obtained from uranium targets that had been irradiated in reactors. They also developed chemical separation techniques to isolate radioactive isotopes for industrial and medical uses from the fission products wastes associated with plutonium production for weapons. Today, many of these same chemical separation techniques are being used by nuclear chemists to clean up radioactive wastes resulting from the fifty-year production of nuclear weapons and to treat wastes derived from the production of nuclear power. 

Because the isotope uranium-235 is fissionable, meaning that it produces free neutrons that cause other atoms to split, it generates enough free neutrons to make it unstable. When the unstable U-235 reaches a critical mass of a few pounds, it produces a self-sustaining fission chain reaction that results in a rapid explosion with tremendous energy and becomes a nuclear (atomic) bomb. The first nuclear bombs were made of uranium and plutonium. Today, both of these fuels are used in reactors to produce electrical power. Moderators (control rods) in nuclear power reactors absorb some of the neutrons, which prevents the mass... 

The most common use of uranium is to convert the rare isotope U-235, which is naturally fissionable, into plutonium through neutron capture. Plutonium, through controlled fission, is used in nuclear reactors to produce energy, heat, and electricity. Breeder reactors convert the more abundant, but nonfissionable, uranium-238 into the more useful and fissionable plutonium-239, which can be used for the generation of electricity in nuclear power plants or to make nuclear weapons. 

First, the uranium-235 changes into uranium-236, a very unstable isotope. Then, the uranium-236 undergoes fission, breaking apart and producing two daughter atoms—barium-142 and krypton-91, plus several neutrons. In a nuclear power plant, the heat generated during these reactions is captured and used to produce electricity. 

Gadolinium is used in control rods in nuclear power plants. Energy produced during nuclear fission is used to generate electricity. Nuclear fission is the process in which large atoms (usually uranium or plutonium) break apart, releasing energy. The smaller atoms produced are called fission products and are radioactive. 

Fission reactions can produce a large amount of energy. For example, the fission of 1 g of uranium-235 generates as much energy as the combustion of 2700 kg of coal. Fission reactions are used to generate electrical energy in nuclear power plants. Uranium-235 and plutonium-239 are the main radioactive isotopes used in these reactors. 

Nuclear power plants in the United States use light water moderated nuclear reactors (LWR) that produce the steam to generate electricity. The fuel elements for boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors (PWR) are nearly the same. The fuel is uranium dioxide enriched with 3 % and this produces a nearly uniform spent fuel, which would be the feed for domestic fuel reprocessing. 

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