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Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Uranium and the nuclear cycle (1979)

AuteurKitty Tucker
Datum1979
Classificatie 6.01.2.10/39 (TECHNISCH - ALGEMEEN)
Voorkant

Uit de publicatie:

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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