Publication Laka-library:
Uranium and the nuclear cycle (1979)
| Author | Kitty Tucker |
| Date | 1979 |
| Classification | 6.01.2.10/39 (TECHNICAL - GENERAL INFORMATION) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
INTRODUCTION Nuclear power is a product of the Twentieth Century. Atomic energy was first introduced to the world when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima,. Japan, on August 6, 1945. Today, electrical generating nuclear plants use a great many times the amount of uranium used to destroy Hiroshima, and the U. S. nuclear weapons program boasts enough weapons to destroy the entire world population. The energy released in a nuclear bomb or a power reactor results from a radioactive process called fission. When a sufficient concentration of a radioactive isotope such as uranium-235 is placed in a reactor this "critical mass" begins the fission process. Fission splits uranium isotopes into lighter elements such as strontium and cesium and releases energy in the form of intense heat. The uranium fission process also produces plutonium, the most deadly substance known to humans and the material used in atomic weapons. The dangers posed by nuclear processes are not confined to the fission process itself. Every step of the nuclear cycle poses a hazard to living things. The hazard arises form the very nature of ionizing radiation, for ionizing radiation can change the atomic structure of matter.
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