re: re Thank you
You wrote:
1) In fission, matter is converted into energy.
I agree, but can you tell me how that process occurs?
In your opinion, would it be right to say that the “matter†is a form of potential energy?
2) If this can be answered [because the question may be poorly worded and may be inaccurate], because of the neutron emission of radioactive material- neutrons cause fission and fission creates neutrons- you can get a chain reaction.
I obtained that particular bit of information from this web site:
http://www.greatlakes.org/field_guide/toxic_nuke.asp
The nuclear energy production process results in a high-level nuclear waste or “irradiated fuel,†often euphemistically called “spent†fuel. Once the irradiated fuel is removed from the reactor to allow a reload of new fuel, it is placed in the waste fuel pool of the reactor. The irradiated fuel in this waste pool is up to a million times more
radioactive than when initially placed into the reactor.
Yes, the nuclear power reactor is in a state of cotrolled chain reaction.
Since radioactivity represents energy, then the spent fuel can be considered as more energetic than the new fuel.
The follow up question is: How does this increased energy disappear from the environment?
3) Does the heat within reactor or surrounding area constantly increase?
If standing 100' from reactor and in a few hours it goes from 70-90F and than 8 hrs later is 60F, then it's not constantly increasing. There might be a more subtle increase such in average temperature- such as having wide swings in temperature, but say an average .001F increase per day, week, year, or whatever. If you carefully measure this and can't determine [because of the "noise" in the measurement] then you can't say it's constantly increasing, and therefore the answer is: yes, "the heat from nuclear reactors escape the Earth at the same rate as it is created"
This btw also is true of the Sun [roughly speaking].
Those are my simple answers. They are not intended as complete and detailed answers. Because one, you didn't ask for that and two, that would take more effort.
Of course I could be wrong and/or someone could explain it better.
It seems to me that since the reaction is controlled the temperature of the steam that turns the turbines can be kept at a certain level, the thermal energy from this steam then is distributed into the environment through the cooling water.
But at the same time as this phenomenon is occurring the fuel is increasing in its energy level.
Since matter is converted into energy in the nuclear reactor then there is more kinetic energy in the environment than there was before such conversion.
The Earth’s temperature has been in a balance through out the past eons but now we are accelerating the energy increase of the planet by using nuclear fuel.
My quest has been to find out how this extra energy from the nuclear reactors is expelled from the environment.
Thank you again for your input.