Nuclear Waste

The biggest problem with nuclear power plants is the waste created during the generation of energy as an unwanted and dangerous byproduct. All waste products from a nuclear power plant are radioactive and thus they are detrimental to almost all kinds of living beings. What is even more hazardous is the fact that they remain radioactive and dangerous for thousands of years, which makes them virtually a permanent hazard. This is the most important reason as to why nuclear power plants cannot be built in close proximity to localities, which of course, limits the opportunity to expand the plants. Scientists and experts all around the world are working on ways to properly neutralize or get rid of the radioactivity from the waste, but they are yet to come up with a solution that is good enough.

At this time, radioactive nuclear wastes are usually put inside concrete structures and buried under the ground because concrete and earth are found to be efficient at containing radioactivity. However, these dump sites must be looked after for thousands of years to make sure that the toxic wastes are not set free accidentally as that could contaminate the entire planet. This in fact, would be an unending process unless we are able to find better ways to get rid of the waste because by the time the radioactivity from today’s nuclear wastes comes down; there would be new radioactive waste to dump from tomorrow’s nuclear plants. Eventually, it is very much possible that the reactors may run out of uninhabited places to dispose their waste products.

While the toxic nuclear waste mainly refers to the used up reactor rods and nuclear fuel residues, even the purifying resins, various tools, clothes, towels and other similar objects that become contaminated with radiation after coming in contact with it at the nuclear plants can also be dangerous. Although they are nowhere near as dangerous as the main waste products, even these less radioactive objects can cause health hazards. The danger lies in the fact that these regular objects may get out by mistake because it is impossible to detect the radioactivity on these day to day items without a Geiger counter.

Possibility of Misuse

Breeder reactors produce plutonium, which is known for its ability to be utilized as the means for creating an atomic weapon as well. Even when weapons grade plutonium is not available, terrorists and extremists may use regular high power explosives to spread the radioactive element as far as they can over their targeted areas. This of course would not have an impact anywhere close to that of an atomic warhead, but it will cause serious health hazards for all those who are exposed to the radioactivity. This weaponization of industry grade plutonium is known as creating a “dirty bomb”.

Non-Renewable Source of Energy

Not unlike the energy and electricity generated from fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum, nuclear energy is also generated from nuclear fuels such as uranium. What this means is that nuclear energy too, is a non-renewable source of energy which is probably even rarer than the fossil fuels. The origin of Uranium is a supernova during which an entire star was destroyed and thus one may imagine how rare the element is and how impossible it is to recreate it. What this means is though nuclear fuels were discovered as a source of power much later than the fossil fuels, both share the same problem of not being infinite or renewable. This makes nuclear energy neither safe nor reliable for the future. In fact, the possibility of ruining the health and chances of survival of the future of human civilization diminish as we keep on using up the limited nuclear fuels.

Effects of Radioactivity Even Under Normal Conditions

Unfortunately, even when a nuclear plant is built well and is ‘safe’ as per the safety guidelines, it is not totally safe. What this means is that though it might be possible to avert disasters through the practice of the safety measures, the workers at a nuclear plant are exposed to small levels of radiation every day, in spite of their special suits. While it may not matter much in the short term, it might be the cause behind cancers if one is exposed to even such small amounts of radiation over a long period of time. This disadvantage however, is not beyond controversy as certain studies have shown that workers at a nuclear plant might actually have lesser chances of developing cancers than normal people.

Time and Economic Issues

Building a nuclear plant is not an easy task. It takes a lot of resources, finance as well as time to construct the working structure itself, but what requires even more resources are the safety measures which are absolutely mandatory for a nuclear plant to be safe for its workers and also for the entire surrounding ecosystem. Construction of a safe nuclear plant thus involves money, time and an appropriate plan; however, there always remains a possibility that someone might skip a few of the safety measures in order to provide for the planet’s ever-increasing demand for power, a bit quicker. It would of course save some money in addition to saving time, but it will also increase the chances of a calamitous mishap by many a times. After seeing accidents at some of the best nuclear power plants in the past, one can easily figure out how dangerous a poorly planned and hastily built nuclear power plant can be. An example of a failed nuclear power project was cited when the Island of Olkiluoto Nuclear Project in Finland failed and all the involved parties suffered huge economic losses.

Possibility of Accidents with Catastrophic Effects

Previously, it was believed that the safety measures are good enough to avoid accidents, but after consecutive incidents at the Three Mile Island in 1979, at Chernobyl in 1986 and finally at the Fukushima Dai-ichi in 2011; that belief is proven to be a myth only. The Chernobyl Disaster is by far the most devastating and dangerous accident that has happened yet and it has not only affected thousands of people with cancers and other deformities that are results of the radioactivity which was released into the environment from the accident, but it has also rendered portions of places like Belarus, Prypiat, Ukraine and Russia uninhabitable for thousands of years to come. The possibility of a nuclear reactor accident is therefore the most fearsome disadvantage of nuclear energy and both theory and history clearly shows us that such accidents can happen. As no nuclear plant can be made in a way so that it is safe from everything, the risk of accidents will increase with each new nuclear reactor.

Matt Pacenza, the policy director for Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah said the places where the technologically is advanced as well as well-designed plant, there are chances that the things may go wrong and with the nuclear, it can be a huge disaster. There are about 104 nuclear power plants in US and none in Utah, but one plant has been planned at the eastern Utah nearby Green River. The water demands in the dry places have created huge roadblock for the development.

Gov Gary Herbert said the nuclear power cannot be taken as an option and by moving forward, the demand s expected to increase and equation will not work without the nuclear. Matt Pacenza,  said the danger can be easily being enough to include the governor for opposing the nuclear power and there are other problems like waste and water must be considered. The state easily attracts more businesses as it has one of the lowest energy costs said Gov Gary Herbert.

The Utah’s 10 year plan was added together by the committee of energy executives, environmental groups and government officials. There are about 2 major coal-fired power plants in Utah and a multiple smaller municipal power plants. A geothermal plant has been working at southern Utah and federal government has selected a place in the West Desert for the solar power.

Nuclear power’s role in the alternative energy sector has recently come back under discussion due to the recent government grant given by President Obama to fund the development of further nuclear power facilities throughout the US. This comes as part of the government’s plan to encourage the establishment of power sources throughout the country in order to lessen the overall dependence upon fossil fuels, however with the $8.3 billion grant being given to support their development many “green” groups are calling the deal foul.

Citing how nuclear energy is one of the leading creators in virtually un-disposable radioactive waste using most traditional energy extraction methods as well as the fact that nuclear reactor construction is a costly, lengthy process where consumers end up paying more for their energy in the long-run than the entire project is worth many people feel that nuclear energy is, in fact, not a viable green option for the planet.

This argument does not take into consideration, however, many of the advancements that have taken place in nuclear energy production and processing capabilities over the past few decades. While it’s true that older nuclear reactors have a relatively low efficiency rate in terms of fuel utilization and processing newer models utilizing a combination of fuel cell and high-proton bombardment arrays can extract energy with much greater efficiency than has been previously seen. This generally creates the dual by product of fresh water and lower level radioactive material that can be re-processed even further for additional uses before disposal, having much less of an overall impact on the environment while offsetting many of the emissions that would be created otherwise through traditional energy creation processes.

While it is true that nuclear power cannot be ever considered fully eco-friendly due to the fact that some radioactive waste is generated in its creation process this does not mean that it is necessarily a “bad” energy source in comparison to other possible energy facilities. Further, the ability for a single nuclear power plant to generate substantially more energy in a small area means that less actual real estate is used to generate power for citizens, something that solar and wind energy farms cannot currently do utilizing our current level of technology.

In the end it boils down to one main consideration: whatever can generate the most power in the cleanest way possible using the shortest amount of time to do so is what will receive financial support in the near future, and currently nuclear power is the best choice for most areas until other energy production methods and catch up.

In nature, very few materials exist that undergo nuclear fission. The most common are Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239. Uranium-235 fission occurs when a slow neutron is captured by a U-235 nucleus. A fast neutron will not be captured, so neutrons must be slowed, or moderated, to increase the likelihood of fission. The capture could result in many possible outcomes; one such is two stable nuclei of Caesium-143 and Rubidium-90, three free neutrons and a binding energy yield. Less than 1% of Uranium is the fissionable isotope U-235, the vast majority is non-fissionable U-238. In order to produce a sustainable fission for use in, for instance, civil nuclear power generation, the composition of uranium-235 is altered by a process called isotope separation such that a greater percentage of it becomes the fissionable U-235. Uranium treated in this way is called enriched uranium. Uranium must be enriched to varying degrees depending on the application. For use in light water reactors uranium enrichment to about 2.5% to 3.5% U-235 is required; for breeder reactors, enrichment to about 15% to 30% is required. Heavy water reactors can use natural uranium and no enrichment because deuterium is a better moderator. For weapons use, uranium needs to be enriched to in excess of 90% U-235.

Light water reactors

Perhaps the most common use of controlled nuclear fission is in nuclear reactors. The most common form of reactor used in the United States is the Light Water Reactor, so called because light water is used as a coolant and moderator. Light water is the term used to describe water made using the common isotope protium, which has a single proton in its nucleus (as opposed to heavy water, which uses the heavier hydrogen isotope deuterium, which has a single neutron and a single proton in its nucleus.)

The core of the reactor contains fuel assemblies. Each fuel assembly comprises a hundred or so nuclear fuel rods, each about 12 feet in length and about the cross-sectional area of a dime. Within each fuel rod are stacked many small pellets of uranium-235 or uranium oxide enriched to about 3%. Each pellet is about an inch in length. Similarly, control rods are filled with pellets of substances such as Cadmium or Hafnium that readily absorb neutrons. The control rods are gathered in bundles of about 20 rods and mounted on an assembly and can be raised or lowered in to the reactor core. When fully lowered, they absorb free neutrons and prevent a chain reaction; when fully raised, more free neutrons are available for capture, leading to a greater rate of fission, and hence energy production. The reactors energy production is controlled in this way.

The entire core is assembled within a water-filled steel vessel, called the reactor vessel. Two common variants of the light water reactor exist. In the boiling water reactor, the heat generated by ongoing fission boils the water, creating steam. This steam is then channeled in to turbines linked to a generator to produce electricity. Steam is then returned to the water vessel via a condenser.
In the second variant, the pressurized water reactor, the heat generated by nuclear fission is directed through a heat exchanger, which then boils water to generate steam. The steam is again channelled through turbines, a condenser and back to the water vessel.

Fast breeder reactors

Since very little natural uranium is of the fissionable U-235 form, a means of generating nuclear energy via the relatively abundant U-238 isotope would be desirable. Breeder reactors do this. In fact, they go one better since, as their name implies, they generate energy and breed more fuel than they consume. In breeder reactors, a core is built using fissionable Pu-239. The core is surrounded by a layer of U-238. As the Pu-239 undergoes spontaneous fission, it releases neutrons. These neutrons convert the surrounding jacket of U-238 in to Pu-239. So, the reactor breeds fuel as it operates. When all the U-238 has been converted to Pu-239, the core is reloaded with U-238. The conversion process requires fast moving neutrons for fission to occur, unlike standard U-235 fission which requires slow moving (or thermal) neutrons. As a result, breeder reactors cannot use water as a coolant since it also acts as a moderator, converting fast neutrons in to thermal neutrons. Various coolants have been used in breeder reactors, including mercury and lead; however, liquid sodium has proved to be the desirable choice in power stations.

There are certain inherent risks involved in using breeder reactors. Pu-239 is extremely toxic so any accident at such a reactor will certainly have wide-reaching, large-scale repercussions. In addition, in order to use the fuel created in the breeder reactor, it must be reprocessed. The reprocessing method is controversial in that it can be easily be employed to extract weapons grade plutonium from a reactor.

There are two types of nuclear fusion reactions: a) those that preserve the number of neutrons and protons and, b) those that involve a conversion between neutrons and protons.

Fusion reactions that preserve the number of neutrons and protons are more important when considering nuclear fusion for practical energy production. An example of this type of reaction occurs when the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium are fused:

Deuterium + Tritium => Helium + Neutron

Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and one neutron in its nucleus; Tritium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and two neutrons in its nucleus; Helium has two protons and two neutrons in its nucleus.
Therefore, we see the number of neutrons and protons is conserved. This reaction is sometimes called the deuterium-tritium (or D-T) reaction.

Fusion reactions that convert neutrons and protons are fundamentally important to the energy production mechanisms in stars. An example occurs to initiate the ‘burning’ of hydrogen in the core of stars when two hydrogen nuclei are fused to form deuterium:

Hydrogen + Hydrogen => Deuterium + Positron + Neutrino

Hydrogen has one proton in its nucleus; Deuterium has one proton and one neutron in its nucleus; Before the reaction, there were two protons (in the hydrogen nuclei); after there is a proton and a neutron bound together as a Deuterium nucleus. The conversion of one proton to a neutron yields a positron and a neutrino.

Nuclear fusion in the sun and other stars

In the late 1930s, Hans Bethe recognized that the fusion of hydrogen nuclei to form deuterium (a hydrogen isotope with one proton and one neutron in its nucleus) is an exoergic process (that is, there is a net release of energy.) By subsequent reactions, it leads to the synthesis of helium. The nucleosynthesis of helium (often called the proton-proton cycle) is the primary source of energy of normal stars, such as the Sun.

The proton-proton cycle starts out with the fusion of two hydrogen nuclei to form deuterium:

Hydrogen + Hydrogen => Deuterium + Positron + Neutrino

The deuterium then captures a further hydrogen nucleus to form helium-3:

Deuterium + Hydrogen => Helium-3 + Gamma ray

The reaction may take one of several paths at this point. At lower temperatures, the most likely continuation of the cycle couple two helium-3 nuclei to produce a helium-4 nucleus plus two protons,

Helium-3 + Helium-3 => Helium-4 + Hydrogen + Hydrogen

Whereas, at higher temperatures, large nuclei are formed, and more energetic neutrinos emitted,

Helium-3 + Helium-4 => Beryllium-7 + Gamma ray

Beryllium-7 + Deuterium => Boron-8 + Gamma ray

Boron-8 => Beryllium-8 + Positron + Neutrino

Beryllium-8 => Helium-4 + Helium-4

No matter which path the cycle takes, the result is Helium-4.

Power generation using nuclear fusion

Harnessing nuclear fusion for peaceful, controlled power generation is highly desirable but has proven more difficult to achieve than with nuclear fission. Nuclear reactions between deuterium and tritium are the most important to consider when pursuing controlled energy creation since such reactions occur frequently and yield high quantities of energy. Simulating conditions found in the core of stars is a difficult undertaking due to the high temperatures and pressures involved, and controlled energy production using nuclear fusion has largely settled in to two means of confirming a high-temperature plasma of elements undergoing nuclear fusion: magnetic confinement and inertial confinement.
In magnetic confinement, the plasma is held in place using magnetic fields. The plasma is held in pressure equilibrium by creating a magnetic well. Significant developments by Russian scientists in the 1960s led to the use of a toroidal magnetic confinement system known as a Tokomak. The Tokomak has been the primary focus of research efforts to harness nuclear fusion for controlled energy production; however, additional techniques such as the compact torus and stellarator have offered additional insight.

In order to achieve fusion, magnetically confined plasmas must be heated to temperatures at which nuclear fusion reactions occur rapidly. This is typically 75 000 000 K and above. This is achieved by magnetically compressing the plasma or by injecting beams of highly energised neutral atoms that ionize and heat the plasma.
Tokomak configurations have been use din the United States, Europe and Japan to create conditions under which practical nuclear fusion will occur. In the United States and Europe, experimental reactors have produced more than 10 MW of power via nuclear fusion.

Inertial confinement processes

In inertial confinement, fuel masses are compressed rapidly to densities up to 10 000 times greater than normal atmospheric pressure for very short periods. At the point of maximum compression, the fuel, in a cool plasma state, is heated by converging shock waves to temperatures high enough to facilitate nuclear fusion. This chain of events employed in this method is very similar to that used in both thermonuclear weapons and in star formation. The fuel mass is collapsed, heated under compression and then fusion is initiated. In order to collapse the fuel, high-power lasers are usually employed, though the same can be achieved using high-energy ions from particle accelerators. Due to the difficulty achieving the extreme conditions required to coerce nuclei to undergo nuclear fusion, for several decades now, researchers have been investigating potential ways in which nuclei can me made to approach each other very closely at much lower temperatures.

Muon-catalyzed fusion is one such technique. In muon-catalyzed fusion, muons are substituted for electrons that usually surround the nucleus of a fuel element. Muons are negatively charged, like electrons, but are 200-times heavier and are very unstable. The essence of this technique is to force the capture of a muon by a deuterium atom and a tritium nucleus, creating a muonic molecule.

Nuclear fusion holds great promise for civilian energy production, but unlike nuclear fission where civilian use was mastered within ten years of its military use, more than fifty years has now passed since nuclear fusion was used for military means and no controlled commercial energy production plant is in operation.

January 2009 saw an additional protocol to the nuclear safeguards agreement between the IAEA and the US. This means that all of the five nuclear-weapon states that are signatories to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty have now fulfilled their undertaking on the issue. The agreement with the US came into force on January 6. Also in January, experts from 40 countries met to examine issues concerning radiation safety and the possible effects on animal and plant life. They met to discuss matters pertaining to general safety as well as environmental protection. January also saw the publication of the third report in a series produced by the IAEA concerning the performance of Japan’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in the wake of the earthquake that struck Niigata and Nagano prefectures in July 2006. The report happily confirmed the safe operation of the plant following the sad and unfortunate events of 2006.

Early February saw IAEA Marine Environment scientists join experts from 26 countries in calling for urgent action to curtail the rapidly-rising levels of acidity in the world’s oceans. The need for such urgent action was described by scientists in Monaco as ‘the challenge of the century’, and that the issue was exacerbated by Man’s dependence on fossil fuels. The chemistry behind such changes in the oceans’ acidity levels are said to be ‘irrefutable’, and are so severe that the impact on marine organisms is unavoidable, thus underscoring the need for imminent action.
The end of February also saw the IAEA’s Director General, Mohamed ElBarade, circulate his most recent report into Nuclear safeguards in Iran, as well as safeguard recommendations for Syria. These reports and discussions were discussed further at a meeting in early March in Vienna, where, focusing primarily upon matters of safety and non-proliferation, it was widely concluded that more work must be done in order to ensure safety. The Director General also noted that Iran had not suspended enrichment activity, nor had it implemented the additional protocol.

The end of April saw welcome news with regards to the encouraging progress of an IEAE-supported project aiming to manage issues relating to pollution in the Caribbean using nuclear analytic techniques.

The month of May saw an international conference on environmental remediation in Kazhakstan. The conference primarily addressed issues relating to safety and safety regulations.

In June, the IAEA Division of Nuclear Applications in Food and Agriculture participated in a study that revealed the genome of the cow-the first such genetic mapping of a mammalian livestock ever completed. The study took six years in total, and involved more than 300 researchers from 25 countries.

In August, member States of Non-Proliferation received the latest report on nuclear safeguards in Iran and Syria. During this month, powerful radioactive sources were taken out of Lebanon, with the sources now being safely stored in Russia.

September 8 saw the latest annual projections for the future of nuclear power, with both high and low projections for 2030 being higher than in 2008.

October saw a meeting of members in Vienna, to discuss supplying nuclear fuel for an Iranian research reactor. Discussions were also had regarding IAEA access to inspect a newly disclosed uranium enrichment facility under construction in the Iranian holy city of Qom.

In December, a week-long conference was held in Kyoto in order to highlight the role of fast reactors in meeting global needs for cleaner and more efficient sources of energy.

Once the heat produced by the reaction is released, the nuclear reactor will produce heat in just the same fashion as other thermal-based power plant, whereby the heat produced converts water into steam and the steam, in turn, turns the turbine blades that power the generator.

The energy produced by this process is extremely cost-effective and generates far less pollution than is produced by fossil fuels. However, the planning, building and operating of nuclear plants is lengthy, complex and costly, so critics often suggest that the costs saved eventually are not truly representative of the costs incurred by the entire nuclear process, both economically and environmentally.

Scientists also argue about the best ways to store waste generated by the nuclear power production process. Some believe that the waste should be buried in concrete containers deep in the Earth, while other suggest firing the waste into space. Both these options have been heavily considered as the half-life for the radioactive elements that are produced, or the time necessary for the elements to break down into even half of their current state, is extremely long and therefore quite dangerous to people.

Because of the concern of waste products a number of different types of nuclear power plants have been developed with better processing abilities. Another type is the breeder reactor, which runs similarly to the standard reactor described above except that it uses plutonium rather than uranium as its fuel source. The plutonium can also be reprocessed after it has been taken from the reactor’s core in order to improve the fuel’s efficiency. After recycling it can be sent back to the plant and re-used and will create more power with each re-usage until, eventually, it can no longer be processed and must be disposed of.

Nuclear reactors generally incur three fundamental risks. Firstly, there is the danger of improper handling of radioactive materials and waste, including disposal which can lead to health problems associated with exposure to radioactive materials (such as various forms of cancer). Secondly, there is the possible inability to control the reactor’s chain reaction, as evidenced by the Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s where the plant reached 150 times its normal operating power level until the pressure inside the plant caused it to literally blow apart. Finally, there is the threat of terrorist attack on a nuclear facility that would lead to one of the two aforementioned risks.

Development sped up after 1932 after James Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron in 1932, and it was Enrico Fermi who first achieved success with nuclear fission in laboratory conditions. Fermi and his team achieved this by bombarding uranium with neutrons.

After further work in 1938 by German chemists and Austrian physicists experimenting with he products of neutron-bombarded uranium. Their work showed that the massive uranium atoms were split into two practically equal pieces by the tiny neutron. This discovery led step by step to investigations into self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions. As a result, scientists in many different countries presented cases to their respective governments for funds to support further research into nuclear fission.

The first man-made reactor was created in the United States in 1942, which was dubbed “Chicago Pile-1”. It later became part of the Manhattan Project, which bred plutonium intended for use in the first nuclear weapons,later to be used in the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Post World War 2 and the both literally and figuratively earth-shattering events thereof there was wide-spread concern that nuclear weapons technology would proliferate, and coupled with memories of the horrors of Japan this led many in the US government and other countries with access to the technology to keep all nuclear-related research under strict governmental classification.

In an effort to put nuclear energy to better use the first electricity generated by a nuclear reactor was produced on December 20th, 1951 at an experimental reactor in Idaho. Despite this relative success the reactor was also the first to witness a partial meltdown, and President Harry Truman at that time opted to shift further research into solar energy, expressing a somewhat pessimistic view as to the future of nuclear energy.

It was President Eisenhower, however, who spelled out his dictum of “Atoms for Peace” in a speech on December 1953, and it was at this point that government backing for the use of international nuclear power grew. Further reactors were built after then, notably in Sellafield in the UK, and the US Navy was the first organisation to harness nuclear power for actual operational use on their ships.

The final decades of the 20th century, however, saw increased opposition to the use of nuclear power with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) prominent among many protest groups. There were increased concerns with regard to the effects nuclear power had on human health and safety as well as growing Cold War fears regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons militarily. Health issues and concerns were exacerbated by the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. This led to the wide-spread re-assessment of nuclear energy and investigations into alternative energy sources that continue to this day.

Nuclear fuel refers to any fuel that is consumed or used as the driving force for nuclear energy, most often generated through a fission process where the fuel’s atomic elements are forcibly divided in order to produce energy. This fuel typically has to have highly fissionable elements that can absorb neutrons that bombard them in order to be easily split and allow for the harnessing the energy that is produced. Nuclear fuel can also either refer directly to the material that is directly used for the nuclear fission process or the physical objects that are developed from the base fuel and are compositions of both the base material and other elements (such as fuel rods that are a mixture of the raw fissionable fuel and either either structural, neutron moderating or neutron reflecting materials that can aid in the process of fission). The most common base fuels that is used in nuclear reactors are either uranium 235 or plutonium 239, Both of which form the backbones of nuclear power generation in modern years.

Other Forms of Nuclear Fuel

Other derivatives of nuclear fuel are used in less common, more contained power generation ways that may not produce as ample amount of energy as the fission process however are generally more contained and safer. This includes the isotope plutonium 238 and other elements that can be used to produce nuclear power through a simple matter of radioactive decay and are very common in atomic batteries and other long-term regular output energy sources. There are a number of other fuel elements that are are also used in alternative forms of nuclear power (such as tritium) and can be found as catalysts in the fusion rather than fission process of nuclear power generation where rather than by splitting atoms for energy molecules are forcibly joined together in order to generate power. This process is most common today in hydrogen fuel cells where hydrogen and oxygen are fused to create the byproduct of water while generating electricity.

The Nuclear Fuel Process

In order to be effectively used as nuclear power on an ongoing basis all nuclear fuels undergo what is referred to as the nuclear fuel cycle, also commonly known as the nuclear fuel chain. This is a progression of steps that either generate a “closed cycle” in which nuclear fuel that has been expended in one round can be reprocessed and reintroduced into a system that will allow it to continue being used in other ways or an “open cycle” in which use nuclear fuel is treated, packaged and disposed of properly once it has been initially expended. While an open fuel cycle was more common in the past as nuclear fuel was generally unable to be reprocessed and reused effectively after its initial expenditure there are a number of modern-day nuclear reactors that allow the for the more efficient and effective neutron bombardment of nuclear fuel and related materials (such as fuel rods that are common in virtually all nuclear power plants in order to increase energy productivity) in order to more efficiently utilize the fissionable material found within the previously expended fuel sources. This allows modern-day nuclear reactors have a much higher efficiency rate in processing fuel (up to 60 times as effective as older model nuclear reactors) and allows for a regular closed cycle that is much more beneficial to the environment. This diagram illustrates the nuclear fuel cycle in greater detail for both closed and open nuclear processing.

To be more specific, fission is the process of splitting one single atomic particle by bombarding it with neutrons from some source in order to create massive amounts of energy as a result of the breaking apart process. Do not confuse this with fusion, however, as fusion is the process of combining molecules into another core substance. Nuclear reactors are specialized plants that utilize material such as uranium in order to generate electricity by forcing the heat and energy discharge generated from the fission into turbines that would then be used to generate electricity. In many ways, nuclear reactors are very similar to other power plants exist throughout the world, but simply use a different base material for their fuel.

The primary fuel source for nuclear reactors throughout the world is uranium 235, plutonium 239 and uranium 238. Out of these three different sources the only natural occurring substance is uranium 235, while the other two are different isotopes or variations of the mineral. An isotope is a molecular compound that has some slight difference in the the basic atomic element itself, such as more or less electrons or neutrons in its nucleus. These isotopes can have various properties and can be useful in generating different amounts of energy.

The reason why these three different compounds are used as fuel sources for nuclear reactors is due to the fact that they are highly fissionable and therefore produce the greatest amounts of energy with the least amount of input. The most difficult fuel for nuclear power plants to utilize of these three is uranium 238 — however, new “fast breeder reactors” have the ability to utilize this more effectively due to their ability to bombard uranium fuel rods with a high-speed neutrons in order to penetrate and split uranium 238 nuclei. As 99.3% of uranium mined naturally is uranium 238 this makes the newer “fast breeder reactors” up to 60 times more efficient than older nuclear power plants.

Normally, for power plants to best utilize uranium, it must be mined, rolled into pellets and then processed into rods which can then inserted into the core of a nuclear power plant. The rods allow for the most efficient utilization of the uranium during the bombardment process to create fission within each molecule and then transfer that energy into the turbines for processing into usable energy that can be fed into power grids for general usage.

The byproduct of these reactions is both depleted uranium that no longer contains useful fissionable material and some radioactive substances (most often various isotopes) that are the result of the processing of the neutrons in the energy production process and the development of the variations of base materials that come about from the fission process. These products are typically more common in older nuclear reactors that are less efficient in processing the uranium and produce greater waste over reactors such as the “fast breeder reactor” mentioned above that have the ability to bombard material with neutrons at a greater rate and thus utilize a fuel more efficiently.