The process for achieving this is rather technical but essentially, for nuclear energy to be produced, changes need to be made within the nucleus of the U-235 atoms. Nevertheless, what is intriguing about this isotope U-235, is that under certain conditions it can be split, generating a lot of energy. As such as lot of countries, such as the US, need to import it from countries like Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan. In other words, it is far from an inexhaustible resource. It is important to note that this uranium isotope represents only 0.7% of the uranium that can be found on the Earth’s crust. It takes its name from the fact that the atoms of this isotope comprise of 92 protons and 143 neutrons – if you add those two numbers together you get a total of 235. Indeed, it is only Uranium 235 (U-235) that is used for this purpose. As such, it is not all uranium isotopes that can be used to produce nuclear energy. Not all uranium that is found on Earth is the same it comes in slightly different forms which are called “isotopes”. Uranium is not particularly abundant in our solar system, but due to its radioactive characteristic it is the main source of heat inside the Earth, causing convection and continental drift. It is a very heavy metal which scientists consider was formed in supernovas about 6.6 billion years ago ! Where can we find uranium?ĭiscovered in 1789 by German chemist Martin Klaproth, uranium is a chemical element found in rocks in concentrations of 2 to 4 parts per million it is as common in the Earth’s crust as tin, tungsten and molybdenum. It has come to mean the energy we are able to extract from nuclear fission, the process whereby we split an atom of uranium making it release energy. But beyond scientific circles, the term “nuclear energy” has a very different meaning.
0 kommentar(er)
