A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe - New

power reactors is centred around finance, they are popular because they are cheap to run. This is fine when they
are operated properly, but the fact remains that the fission process is definitely risky and a very costly one in
more ways than just financial.
In fission reactors the process involves a type of uranium, the atoms of which are struck by high-energy (highspeed)
neutrons that split the nuclei of those uranium atoms apart. When this happens the sub-atomic particles
from the original nucleus fly apart and there is a release of energy that is no longer required to hold things
together. Further neutrons are released during this process that go on to collide with yet other atoms of uranium;
and so the same process is repeated in a very rapid cascade-type fashion. You might imagine this chain-reaction
could run away with itself and go out of control, and you would be correct, so it has to be deliberately regulated.
This is done by employing carbon rods to absorb some of the powerful sub-atomic particles that are flying
around. When these carbon rods are deeply inserted inside the reactor core, the overall energy generated will be
at a relatively moderate level. As the rods are then withdrawn, more interaction is allowed between neutrons and
the atoms of uranium, so a greater amount of energy is generated. The useful energy released in the form of heat
is then used to boil water that produces steam which in turn drives turbines connected to electrical generators
that eventually produce electrical power. This is what goes on in our nuclear power stations today.
Nuclear Fusion
You can look upon nuclear fusion as being (at the atomic level) the opposite of fission as it is the process where
atomic nuclei are forced together rather than split apart. Nuclear fusion has been presented to us as the process
that allows our Sun to work by changing a form of hydrogen gas into helium gas and releasing great amounts
of energy as it does that.
The Nuclear Fusion process © author
The current thermonuclear model of the Sun
says that it is a gigantic ball of hydrogen gas
and that nuclear fusion is taking place at
its core. Here, the fusion process is due to
forms of hydrogen nuclei being compressed
by extreme physical pressure and agitated
with tremendous temperatures so that they
fuse together to form new nuclei of helium.
During this process excess neutrons are
released. To further explain this ...
7 | Some basic theory that will help