![]() The water evaporates into steam which turns a turbine, which in turn drives a generator to produce electricity. The kinetic energy of the neutrons is harnessed by the nuclear reactor and used to heat water. The reactor is covered with a thick concrete shield to ensure that no radiation is able to penetrate through and escape the reactor. and world fusion energy research programs are developing something that no one will want or can afford. The reason why opposite processes release. Fusion: Ten Times More Expensive Than Nuclear Power By Robert L. In both cases, energy is freed because the mass of the remaining nucleus is smaller than the mass of the reacting nuclei. To stop this happening, the reactor contains control rods, usually made of boron, which absorb some of the extra neutrons so that only a single neutrons is released per fission event. Fission splits a heavy element (with a high atomic mass number) into fragments while fusion joins two light elements (with a low atomic mass number), forming a heavier element. It is important that the chain reaction doesn’t get out of hand, otherwise the reactor could explode. ![]() These neutrons hit other nuclei in a chain reaction. ![]() When a neutron is absorbed by a nucleus, it undergoes a fission event, breaking apart into two nuclei and two or three neutrons. It differs significantly from nuclear fission, which has been our only way of getting electricity from atoms since the. Fission only works if the neutron is moving slowly enough to be absorbed by a nucleus so nuclear reactors contain something called a moderator, usually made of graphite, which reduces the speed of the neutrons, making them more likely to be absorbed by a nucleus. Nuclear fusion is an attempt to replicate the processes of the Sun on Earth. Fusion is where two light atomic nuclei combine and release energy, while fission is the process of splitting two heavy, unstable atomic nuclei into two lighter. Nuclear fission involves the splitting of a heavy nucleus into lighter nuclei, while nuclear fusion involves the combining of light nuclei into a single heavier. Fission is used in nuclear reactors to produce energy. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |