Energy of today and tommorrow Fission and Fusion Energy of today and tommorrow

What is nuclear force? The strong nuclear force is the force is the attractive force that binds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus of an atom This force exists over VERY short distances When the strong nuclear force struggles to overcome the electric forces, the atom becomes unstable and therefore radioactive All elements with 83 or more protons are radioactive

Fission Fission is the splitting of a nucleus into smaller parts Fission was 1st explained by Meitner in 1939, but was 1st demonstrated by Hahn and Strassman in 1938 accidentally In fission tremendous energy can be produced from very small amounts of mass When fission occurs small amounts of mass are lost and energy is produced This was explained by E=mc2 Uncontrolled nuclear fission is how atomic weapons are made.

Nuclear Power In a nuclear power plant uranium-235 undergoes fission in a reactor Nuclear power plants do not give off greenhouse gases Radioactive waste is by-product that must be dealt with as it remains harmful to humans for 100s of thousands of years The largest nuclear accident occurred in Chernobyl in the Ukraine, where radioactive waste was released into the atmosphere after a nuclear core meltdown

Fusion Fusion is the process where two nuclei come together to form a single nuclei creating one large nucleus and releasing large amounts of energy The sun in powered by fusion At the sun’s temperature matter exists as plasma, a state at which atoms can be stripped of their electrons This one day may provide clean cheap energy, but that day is still a long way off