Word: fissionable
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...atomic power, scientists have dreamed of converting nuclear energy directly into electricity. The potential is clear from a simple statistic: a single pound of uranium 235 has the same fuel energy as 1,500 Ibs. of coal. But present atomic power plants must go through costly intermediate steps: nuclear fission produces heat, the heat is used to generate steam, the steam drives a turbine, the turbine generates the electricity...
...inside a vacuum-sealed can that contains liquid cesium. The uranium is enriched with U-235. Around the cesium is a circulating coolant (see diagram). When the device is lowered inside a reactor, the uranium is bombarded by the neutrons generated by the reactor, causing the U-235 to fission and give off intense heat...
After twelve hours, the device had to be shut down because the uranium fission produces gas as a byproduct that dilutes the plasma and dangerously raises the pressure inside the can. In future plasma thermocouples, this can be solved by bleeding off the gas. But the cesium plasma proved to have a thermoelectric efficiency much higher than any combination of solid metals...
...original cause of the accident is still unknown. Presumably, enough plutonium somehow got into the tank to support a fission chain reaction. The resulting burst of radiation ionized the air and caused the blue flash. The reacting liquid probably boiled, separating the plutonium and stopping the reaction in a few seconds. That was too late for Kelley...
...fission process, nuclear reactors produce a gas-Krypton 85-which hangs in the atmosphere. The U.S. can take careful readings of Krypton 85 in the air, subtract what it knows it has put there, subtract what the British have put there, and assign the balance to Russian origin. Making an even less exact calculation, U.S. experts guesstimate that the Russians must have something like 3,000 nuclear weapons. The U.S. may have at least three times that, but it does not make much difference: nuclear parity is achieved when each has enough to destroy the other...