![]() This is why fusion is still in the research and development phase – and fission is already making electricity. The reasons that have made fusion so difficult to achieve to date are the same ones that make it safe: it is a finely balanced reaction which is very sensitive to the conditions – the reaction will die if the plasma is too cold or too hot, or if there is too much fuel or not enough, or too many contaminants, or if the magnetic fields are not set up just right to control the turbulence of the hot plasma. Unlike nuclear fission, the nuclear fusion reaction in a tokamak is an inherently safe reaction. In conventional nuclear power stations today, there are systems in place to moderate the chain reactions to prevent accident scenarios and stringent security measures to deal with proliferation issues. ![]() This chain reaction is the key to fission reactions, but it can lead to a runaway process resulting in nuclear accidents. The result of the instability is the nucleus breaking up, in any one of many different ways, and producing more neutrons, which in turn hit more uranium atoms and make them unstable and so on. We’re very pleased that the NRC commissioners recognized that fusion energy is entirely different from nuclear fission and therefore should not be regulated in the same way, Pravesh Patel. Breeder reactors are now in operation in Great Britain, France, and Russia. Since 99.3 of naturally occurring uranium is the U-238 isotope, the use of breeder reactors should increase our supply of nuclear fuel by roughly a factor of 100. It is triggered by uranium absorbing a neutron, which renders the nucleus unstable. The Pu-239 is itself highly fissionable and can therefore be used as a nuclear fuel in place of U-235. Fission and chain reactionsįission is the nuclear process that is currently run in nuclear power plants. Both reactions release energy which, in a power plant, would be used to boil water to drive a steam generator, thus producing electricity. However, fusion is combining light atoms, for example two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, to form the heavier helium. Following Niels Bohrs February 1939 explanation of uranium-235 being responsible for the slow-neutron fission in natural uranium, it became. In fission, energy is gained by splitting heavy atoms, for example uranium, into smaller atoms such as iodine, caesium, strontium, xenon and barium, to name just a few.
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