Nuclear Energy: Is Fission the Future? Vocabulary for Students

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Nuclear Energy: Is Fission the Future? Vocabulary for Students • Alternative energy: An energy source that does not use fossil fuels. • Atom: The smallest particle of an element. • Emissions: The release of something, like pollution from a car’s tailpipe. • Greenhouse gases1: Gases in Earth’s atmosphere that absorb infrared radiation and trap heat. Some greenhouse gases are naturally occurring compounds (like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide), while others are human-made (like gases used for aerosols). • Neutron: A particle located in the nucleus of an atom that is neutrally-charged. • Nuclear accident: When dangerous radioactive material is released into the environment. Highly radioactive materials like the uranium used for nuclear fuel or nuclear waste is toxic to people and animals. • Nuclear fission: The splitting of an atom’s nucleus into two smaller nuclei and neutrons. • Nuclear fusion2: The combining of two nuclei to produce a single larger nucleus and much energy. Nuclear fusion happens in stars like our sun, producing heat and light. • Nuclear power/nuclear energy: A method of harnessing the energy from nuclear fission reactions to produce electricity. • Nuclear reactor: The part of a nuclear power plant where nuclear fission chain reactions occur. • Nuclear waste: Sometimes called ‘spent fuel,’ nuclear waste is composed of the products of nuclear fission that are no longer usable but still highly radioactive, and thus toxic to life. • Uranium: A naturally radioactive heavy metal that can be used as an energy source to power a nuclear reactor. 1 Take a deeper dive into greenhouse gases with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2 Want to learn more about fusion energy? Take an online fusion course with the Contemporary Physical Education Project (CPEP)! 1.

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Table 2.Iii.1. Fissionable Isotopes1
FISSIONABLE ISOTOPES Charles P. Blair Last revised: 2012 “While several isotopes are theoretically fissionable, RANNSAD defines fissionable isotopes as either uranium-233 or 235; plutonium 238, 239, 240, 241, or 242, or Americium-241. See, Ackerman, Asal, Bale, Blair and Rethemeyer, Anatomizing Radiological and Nuclear Non-State Adversaries: Identifying the Adversary, p. 99-101, footnote #10, TABLE 2.III.1. FISSIONABLE ISOTOPES1 Isotope Availability Possible Fission Bare Critical Weapon-types mass2 Uranium-233 MEDIUM: DOE reportedly stores Gun-type or implosion-type 15 kg more than one metric ton of U- 233.3 Uranium-235 HIGH: As of 2007, 1700 metric Gun-type or implosion-type 50 kg tons of HEU existed globally, in both civilian and military stocks.4 Plutonium- HIGH: A separated global stock of Implosion 10 kg 238 plutonium, both civilian and military, of over 500 tons.5 Implosion 10 kg Plutonium- Produced in military and civilian 239 reactor fuels. Typically, reactor Plutonium- grade plutonium (RGP) consists Implosion 40 kg 240 of roughly 60 percent plutonium- Plutonium- 239, 25 percent plutonium-240, Implosion 10-13 kg nine percent plutonium-241, five 241 percent plutonium-242 and one Plutonium- percent plutonium-2386 (these Implosion 89 -100 kg 242 percentages are influenced by how long the fuel is irradiated in the reactor).7 1 This table is drawn, in part, from Charles P. Blair, “Jihadists and Nuclear Weapons,” in Gary A. Ackerman and Jeremy Tamsett, ed., Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Growing Threat (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2009), pp. 196-197. See also, David Albright N 2 “Bare critical mass” refers to the absence of an initiator or a reflector.
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