Nuclear Power - A Short History Essay -- Nuclear Energy Breeder Fissio

Nuclear Power - A Short History Nuclear fission is the splitting of the nuclei of (normally) very heavy or unstable elements (normally heavier than iron), resulting in a release of large amounts of energy as well as the unstable, radioactive isotopes of lighter elements, as well as any logical number of neutrons. For uranium 235, the most abundant usable fuel present in nature, the number of neutrons released is about 2.4 per atom, and the energy released is about 215 MeV per atom (Example, nd), or about 215 MeV * 6.02*10^23 235U * 1000 g * joule 235U 1 * g * Kg * MeV * 1.602*10-13 = 8.05*10^15 joule or 8.05 petajoule per kilogram of uranium 235 However, uranium is not found in natural concentrations of more than 0.7% of any given amount of uranium; in order to efficiently obtain energy from uranium, one must "enrich" the uranium, or concentrate the usable isotopes (Uranium, nd). Leo Szilard, a Hungarian scientist who had recently escaped Berlin for London, first entertained the idea of a chain-reaction of radioactive isotopes in 1933 (Szilà ¡rd, 2006); he patented his idea in 1936 in the U.K., and shared a patent with Enrico Fermi in the United States. Later, Otto Hahn and Fritz Stressmann, along with Lise Mietner and her nephew Otto Frisch, discovered fission when Hahn and Stressmann bombarded uranium with neutrons, resulting in the emission of a few smaller atoms in addition to neutrons and energy; Mietner and Frisch interpreted the resulting energy and atoms as being the results of fission of the uranium atoms' nuclei ("History," Georgia State University, nd); this fission resulted in huge amounts of energy per reaction (on the order of 200 mega electron-volts per atom of uranium 235). In 1942 and after deciding that ura... ...n the Accident at Three Mile Island. Retrieved August 2, 2006 from http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/ doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html Nuclear Tourist. (2005, December 19) Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). Retrieved August 2, 2006 from http://www.nucleartourist.com/type/pwr.htm Wikipedia. (2006, August) Chicago Pile 1. Retrieved August 2, 2006 from Nuclear Energy 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile_1 Wikipedia. (2006, August) Leà ³ Szilà ¡rd. Retrieved August 2, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd Wikipedia. (2006, August) Magnox. Retrieved August 2, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnox Wikipedia. (2006, August) Nuclear Power. Retrieved August 2, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power Wikipedia. (2006, August) Nuclear Fission. Retrieved August 2, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission