'The Axis of Evil' being North Korea?

Question

What do they mean when people talk about enriched plutonium and weapons grade etc and can somebody explain in simple terms what nuclear is exactly?

Answer 1

Why do you want to know what's going to annihilate mankind pretty soon the way things are going?

Answer 2

Apologies to Jim C but I don't think his answers are correct.

Firstly all the isotopes (different forms) of plutonium are radioactive. True, there is one that has a very long half-life (80 million years) but it is a rare form. The radioactive output from plutonium is sufficient to make it warm to the touch.

Secondly, it is hardly justified to say 'found in nature'. There are absolutely minute amounts found in Uranium deposits, but Plutonium is almost exclusively a man-made product.

Uranium and Plutonium occur in different forms with different degrees of radioactivity and instability. Unlike Hydrogen or Oxygen (for example) radioactive elements change into other elements over time and as they do this the release radiation. Enrichment means increasing the proportion of a particular type of Plutonium (or Uranium) in the batch. Because the different types have very slightly different densities, they can be enriched by a centrifuge process.

'Weapons grade' means that it has been enriched to the point where it will support a nuclear chain reaction. As someone else has answered a nuclear reaction is the process of breaking down an atom (at one time thought to be impossible). In this process an amount of energy is released. For each individual atom the amount is still quite small, but when you add all the energy together from all the atoms involved the total is huge. A 'chain reaction' is when part of the energy (in a certain form) released by one atomic breakdown causes neighbouring atoms also to break down giving off more energy .... and so on.

(There is another type of nuclear reaction called 'fusion' in which atoms are 'melted together' - so to speak ).

Answer 3

Nuclear power is created by slitting an atom, I think. The power created by doing this is absolutely huge.

Through scientific research, it was learned how to harness this power to be used as an energy source.

However, the type of plutonium that is used defines the power that is produced. So when they talk about weapons grade / enriched plutonium, I think this is when it has been mixed with ?uranium? so that it can be specifically used for created weapons/missiles/warheads....for use in war.

The bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan was the equivalent of 20,000 tonnes of TNT, from one bomb, so you can imagine the power.

Lets all pray that we never enter a nuclear war !

I hope this helps, it is as much as I know

Answer 4

Hi,
When a nuclear atom decays radioactively it releases a particle and energy, one of these particles may collide with another radioactive particle causing that to decay. If you have enough radioactive material with enough radioactive atoms in it these particle/atom collisions can escalate till there is an enormous release of energy. This is an atomic weapon and it usually requires a trigger to start the reaction, conventional explosives or laser, etc. Enriched plutonium is where the density of radioactive atoms are increased so that the escalating reaction takes place more easily.

Hope that helps PP

Answer 5

a nuclear reaction occurs essentially when you split an atom. it could be any atom, but the most powerful ones are those found in plutonium or uranium. but the power can be further intesified to cataclysmic levels when it is enriched (a process of which i cannot explain, but you can liken it to charging it up like you would a batterry ). so if you had a nucluear weapon with basic plutomium it would only effect a rather small area, enriched uranium can produce bombs that could devastate huge areas

Answer 6

Plutonium in it's natural state is not radio active, but enriching it makes it that way. Weapons grade means it is enriched to a point to where it can be used as WMD's. There are many medical applications that use plutonium (Cancer Radiation) but it's enriched to such low levels that it's not considered deadly.

Answer 7

The nuclear material required (H.E.P.) for a highgrade WMD device is a by product of Nuclear power stations.