Sentences with phrase «uranium fission»
Uranium fission is when the nucleus of a uranium atom splits into smaller parts, releasing a lot of energy. It is used in nuclear reactors and bombs. Full definition
Today's nuclear power plants use the heat from uranium fission reactions to do nothing more complicated than boil water, making pressurized steam that spins turbines to generate electricity.
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By September, Bohr and Wheeler had produced a thorough theoretical analysis, explaining the physics underlying the fission process and identifying which isotope of uranium fissioned most readily.
The Atomic Age kicked off with a bang on July 16, 1945, with the detonation of a test uranium fission bomb at the Alamogordo Test Range in the New Mexico desert, during what's known as the «Golden Age» of comic books and strips.
The U.S. employs 104 light - water reactors to generate 20 percent of its electricity today; the reactors moderate uranium fission and the heat it produces with water, which is also boiled into steam to turn an electricity - generating turbine.
Like older models, they will use uranium fission to heat water and drive a turbine, but these reactors will be smaller, simpler to build, and each will add more than 1100 megawatts of capacity to the region's power grid when they come online in 2016 or 2017 — without emitting carbon dioxide.
Before uranium fission, all submarines were powered by oil burning diesel engines.
Uranium fission provides reliable heat from reactions that are six orders of magnitude (powers of ten) more energy dense than the combustion reactions used to produce energy from coal, oil and natural gas.
Though control rods have stopped the uranium fission process that drives normal operation of a nuclear reactor, the byproducts of that continue to split and generate heat.