What
is Fission energy?
Why is Fission better than burning fossil fuels?
Why is Fission unpopular?
"Fission is a nuclear process in which a heavy nucleus splits into two smaller nuclei." Fission occurs when the internal electrostatic forces of the atom can be overcome. A larger atom has more electrostatic repulsion between the protons than a smaller atom, therefore once the strong bonds can be broken, the atom will fission. This is done by accelerating a proton and smashing it into the atom. The atom then splits into two different atoms. The energy released in this process can be harnessed for many uses. In a fission reaction, the number of protons and neutrons in the product equal that of the original. Fission is created naturally in the universe everyday, in fact, two billion years ago the Earth had a natural uranium fission reactor in West Africa.1
Why is Fission better than burning fossil fuels?
Fossil fuels are not very efficient. Fission, on the other hand, can be utilized to create massive amounts of energy. Like fusion, the amount of energy created in the fission process is millions of times larger than that of a normal chemical reaction. 2
Similar to fusion, there are massive amounts of radiation created in the fission reaction. Research is being performed today to discover alternative ways of purifying the process and reducing the amount of pollution created. Fission requires a large amount of energy to start the process, as power is needed to accelerate the proton.
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