The outlook for uranium has turned brighter with countries again embracing nuclear energy. Powering a Clean Energy Future with Uranium Nuclear reactors produce little waste or spent fuel, and only a small portion of that is highly radioactive. Nuclear power plants have the smallest land footprint per unit of electricity at 0.3m2 per megawatt-hour. The difference between traditional energy methods and nuclear energy is that nuclear plants do not burn anything. Nuclear power has the highest EROI of any energy source, returning 75 units of energy for every unit of energy spent in construction and operation. The table below compares the energy density of uranium to other fuels, expressed in megajoules of energy contained per kilogram of fuel:Įnriched uranium-235, the fuel used by commercial nuclear reactors, contains 3.9 million megajoules of energy per kilogram of weight, which is magnitudes larger than the energy density of traditional fossil fuels.įor this reason, a relatively small quantity of nuclear fuel can produce significant amounts of energy through fission, translating into various advantages for nuclear power: At the center of the reactor is the core, which contains uranium fuel. The African Commission on Nuclear Energy has launched a five-year. The heat created by splitting the U-235 atoms is then used to make steam which spins a turbine to drive a generator, producing electricity. Fission takes place inside the reactor of a nuclear power plant. The reactor pressure vessel for unit 3 at the Xudabao nuclear power plant in Chinas. serves as a source of neutrons with its fission. Nuclear power ultimately stems from the radioactivity of uranium atoms, which yield great amounts of energy when split by the process of fission.īesides the radioactive nature of uranium, its energy density-the amount of energy it contains per unit of mass-is one of its exceptional properties, making it significantly more powerful than other energy fuels. In a nuclear reactor the uranium fuel is assembled in such a way that a controlled fission chain reaction can be achieved. Conventional thermal nuclear power plants like Daya Bay usually use fuel with uranium-235 that is enriched to 2 to 5 per cent. A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor.
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