How Nuclear Power Works :: essays research papers

How Nuclear Power WorksNuclear power plants provide just about 17 percent of the worlds electricity. Some countries depend more on nuclear power for electricity than others. In France, for instance, about 75 percent of the electricity is generated from nuclear power, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. In the United States, nuclear power supplies about 15 percent of the electricity overall, but some states protrude more power from nuclear plants than others. There are more than 400 nuclear power plants around the world, with more than 100 in the United States.The dome-shaped containment edifice at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant near Raleigh, NCHave you ever wondered how a nuclear power plant works or how safe nuclear power is? In this article, we will examine how a nuclear reactor and a power plant work. Well explain nuclear fission and give you a view inside a nuclear reactor.UraniumUranium is a fairly common element on Earth, incorporated into the plane t during the planets formation. Uranium is to begin with formed in stars. Old stars exploded, and the dust from these shattered stars aggregated together to form our planet. Uranium-238 (U-238) has an extremely long half-life (4.5 billion years), and therefore is still present in fairly large quantities. U-238 makes up 99 percent of the uranium on the planet. U-235 makes up about 0.7 percent of the remaining uranium found naturally, while U-234 is eve more rare and is formed by the decay of U-238. (Uranium-238 goes through many stages or of import and beta decay to form a stable isotope of lead, and U-234 is whiz link in that chain.)Uranium-235 has an interesting property that makes it useful for both nuclear power production and for nuclear bomb production. U-235 decays naturally, just as U-238 does, by alpha radiation. U-235 also undergoes spontaneous fission a small percentage of the time. However, U-235 is one of the few materials that can undergo induced fission. If a free n eutron runs into a U-235 karyon, the nucleus will absorb the neutron without hesitation, become unstable and split immediately. See How Nuclear Radiation Works for complete details.Nuclear FissionThe animation below shows a uranium-235 nucleus with a neutron approaching from the top. As soon as the nucleus captures the neutron, it splits into two lighter atoms and throws off two or three new neutrons (the bout of ejected neutrons depends on how the U-235 atom happens to split).