re: PS....Do not underestimate the power in the nucleus.
Splitting the nucleus generates a lot of ions and electrons.
See the information in the following sites.
http://www.uic.com.au/ral.htm
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications.html
From this link:
http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Thermochem/Energy-Work-Heat-Temp.html
temperature is a property which is directly proportional to the kinetic energy of the substance under examination.
From this site:
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/vrchemistry/energy/default.htm
A third important property that is conserved is energy. Combustions and many other reactions give off energy in the form of heat, and this makes these processes useful to us. But if we draw an imaginary box around the reacting substances, large enough to contain the substances and everything else they interact with, then the total energy within that box will not change during the reaction. (This is one form of the first law of thermodynamics.)
From this site:
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Heat.html
Radioactive elements are inherently unstable, breaking down over time to more stable forms. The unstable isotope Uranium-238, for example, will slowly decay to Lead-206. All such radioactive decay processes release heat as a by product of the on-going reaction. In its early stages of formation, the young earth had a greater complement of radioactive elements, but many of these (e.g., aluminum-26) are short-lived and have decayed to near extinction. Others with a more lengthy rate of decay and are still undergoing this radioactive process, thus still releasing heat energy. The greater complement of unstable elements in the early Earth thus generated a greater amount of heat energy in its initial stages of formation.
When doing energy calculations do not forget that the Earth itself is converting the potential energy that is in the atoms into kinetic energy through the nuclear fission process.
And also understand that humans are helping this process of energy conversion by constructing power plants that speed up the process.
Then we are spreading the energetic atoms into the atmosphere where they can do amazing things, like make the ozone (and air) disappear into space.
That’s my opinion anyway, I do not expect anyone to even look into the possibility of this process because everyone dismisses the quantities in the processes as insignificant compared to the energy coming to us from the sun.
The amount of CFC’s and many other chemicals in the atmosphere are also insignificant compared to the amount of energy coming from the sun, yet these chemicals are considered as the villains in the ozone depletion, and since there is one villain all ready, no one wants to explore the possibility that a sacred cow of the energy department might actually be the cause of the problems.