Page 32 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

Nuclear energy
The most common use of the radioactive elements is to release nuclear energy. Radioactive elements are not, of course, alone in releasing energy as they change: all matter releases energy. If we eat a bar of chocolate, for example, chemical changes occur that release energy to our bodies. Another familiar example is the way natural gas releases energy as it combines with oxygen during burning.
In a nuclear reaction the change takes place inside the atoms. A radioactive material such as uranium is bombarded with radiation
in the form of neutrons. This process,
fission, causes the uranium to split up into two new atoms, setting in motion a self-bombarding process that releases massive amounts
of heat.
Uranium bombarded with
neutrons produces strontium and xenon gas and releases more neutrons, giving out more heat energy.
In this case the heat given out is twenty-five million times as great as for an equivalent amount of burning gas.
 A nuclear power station, showing the reactor in the foreground and cooling towers to the left.
 Countries which have few natural reserves of fossil fuels tend to invest in nuclear energy to meet their electricity needs. In Japan half of all electricity is produced by nuclear power; in France it is three-quarters.
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