Uranium And Nuclear Energy

Attention Getter: When most people think of nuclear energy, the first thing that comes to their minds is a devastating bomb explosion or a nuclear power plant meltdown. But, in reality, nuclear energy is a sustainable energy source that has an enormous variety of uses.

Uranium can be found in a lot of places in small quantities such as rocks, soil, and water. However, its harder to find uranium in amounts that are worth the trouble.

That is true, nuclear plant uses uranium to get energy, normally one gram uranium can generate 8000 times’ energy comparing to traditional fuel like oil or gas. According to Moore (2007), hydroelectric is largely built to capacity; meanwhile wind and solar power are unreliable to provide “baseload” energy especially in large city with huge demand. According to nuclear energy’s efficiency, proponents strong believe government should build nuclear plant to meet the increasing demand of electricity. Also, this group people say not only can uranium provide so much energy but also with no greenhouse emission.

The use of fossil fuels as a primary source of power is poisoning our world, and nuclear power is just the way to stop this. Nuclear power is using the process of nuclear fission to create electricity. Nuclear fission is the splitting of a uranium atom to release massive amounts of energy. When this process takes place in a nuclear reactor, the energy is used to superheat water which is pumped through pipes also submerged in water which then boils. The pressurized water vapor is used to turn turbines that produce electricity. Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, safest, most reliable and economically beneficial sources of power, and it needs to be considered as a substitute for fossil fuels. Nuclear power unfortunately has been given a bad name, but is actually an important resource that should be utilized by the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Beginning in 1941 the exploration of uranium 235 and the atomic bomb began. The bomb would be used against Japan to end the deadly encounters during World War II in exchange for unconditional surrender. In 1945 the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima killing over 190,000 people and then another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki killing about 70,000 people. Japan surrendered bringing an end to the war but this was only the beginning of what is known as the nuclear age.

Uranium is a highly radioactive element that must be handled with care when mining. In almost all forms of mining, the ore is leached with sulfuric acid whether it is underground still or crushed and

Nuclear power is achieved through fission; the splitting of an atom. Usually, the atom is uranium, the ninety-second element on the periodic table. One of the heavier elements, uranium is unstable and produces an extreme amount of energy when split (Reynoldson 5). Other elements like plutonium can also be used, but plutonium is very rare which results in the majority of nuclear

Uranium was first discovered during the 18th century (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research). It’s a silver-white metal that is radioactive and has high density (Lenntech). However, scientists studied uranium as it has radioactive properties but have found that uranium is only harmful if you’re exposed to it more often than usual or the natural amount (which I’ll go over in the second paragraph) (Lenntech). Natural uranium has three isotopes (which are essentially different forms of the same element. While they have the same number of protons, they have a different number of neutrons): uranium-238, uranium-235, and uranium-234 (Lenntech). Uranium plays a major role in nuclear reactions and is essential when making nuclear weapons (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research). In fact, the first atomic bomb that was used during war was an uranium bomb (Lenntech). Depleted uranium (uranium

Uranium is a dense radioactive metal that is used in nuclear reactors. It is found in nature and has two large isotopes, U-235 and U-238. The energy that is produced in nuclear reactors is from the splitting or fission of the U-235 atoms. It releases energy in most cases in the form of heat; U-235 is the main splitting isotope of uranium. Uranium enriched is required to be in light water reactors, which allows controlled nuclear reaction.

Using uranium in nuclear power are one of the most power and most efficient and many countries seek to invest into power plants. In the article, “Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: IF The Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically, Could It Also Succeed Legally?” by Amal Bala states, “As of 2011, nuclear power has provided about 5% of the worlds “total primarily energy supply” and 11.7% of “world electricity generation” in terms of fuel shares, with the United States, France and Russia combing to create about 56% of the world’s nuclear-generated electricity” (Amal). Furthermore, using power plants emits lower greenhouse gases because it doesn’t emit any carbon dioxide and methane. The only greenhouse gases that power plants emit is when extracting fuel or extracting energy from uranium base from Nuclear Energy. In addition, nuclear power plants are reliable, instance if an area is having a bad weather like a cloudy day, then some solar power machine would not work. However, nuclear power plants can function almost daily and the only time it stops working is when something needs to be repaired. As a result, thanks to Nuclear Energy, the positive side on using uranium is to power nuclear power plants are, it emits low amount of greenhouse gases, it powerful and efficient, and it very

Uranium is a chemical element that is silvery-white with an atomic number of 92 having 92 protons and neutrons. In Colorado the Uravan Mineral Belt is the oldest uranium mining in America. It was also has 1,200 historic mines that produce over 63 million pounds of Uranium from 1948 to 1978. Uranium is a hazardous element the reason so is because if inhaling uranium decaying products causes lung cancer also uranium mill tailings contain that contain radioactive ,materials, notably radium-226, and heavy metals which leach out into groundwater and test from mill tailings from water shows that that water contamination are at hundreds of times the government’s acceptable level of drinking water. Uranium plants or mill tailing plants also

When atoms split apart, they can be used to generate electricity. This process is called nuclear fission. Most nuclear power plants use uranium to generate electricity, since its atoms easily split apart, and there is a large quantity of uranium in the world. Only a little amount of uranium is needed to produce a lot of energy. This type of energy is called nuclear energy. Uranium-235 is used to make electricity. To generate electricity from uranium, first, large amounts of uranium pellets are placed inside a nuclear reactor. Inside the uranium

It is not until recently that people have become dependent on this element, and not necessarily for the good of it, and the world. There is an obsession with uranium because of its unique properties. Uranium is extremely powerful because of its radioactive properties and unstable nuclei, especially that of Uranium-235. It is able to break down and release high frequency radiation through alpha and beta decay. It is because of these characteristics that Uranium has such a craze on the population of the world (Cox, 1995; Scerri, 2007). The properties of uranium allow people to create powerful plants to produce electricity, and weapons strong enough to destroy the world.

A competitive, safe and environmentally sustainable energy source can be established anywhere on earth. Essential, all that is needed to create a nuclear power plant is a water source to cool down the reactor and uranium. Uranium can be found virtually in every country on earth. Even though it might be harder for certain countries to obtain uranium, there would be no problem in finding it around the world.

Nuclear energy is an alternative source of energy that holds great amounts of energy and is one of the future sources of energy for this world. “Nuclear energy is energy in the nucleus (core) of an atom. There is enormous energy in the bonds that hold the nucleus together. Energy is released when those bonds are broken” (Uranium). Unlike a chemical reaction with fossil fuels, nuclear reactions create an even greater amount of energy than fossil fuels. “Nuclear energy can be used to make electricity, but first it must be released it can be released from atoms in two ways: nuclear fusion and nuclear fission” (Uranium). Nuclear energy already provides 1/5 of all the energy in the U.S.,