Nuclear power plants?

Question

Must a nuclear power plant maintain a chain reaction?
Does nuclear fission produce long-lived radioactive by-products?
What exactly is a long-lived radioactive by-product?

Answer 1

Yes, because otherwise the reaction would stop and no more energy produced.

Yes, the radioactive waste from nuclear power plants remain radioactive for thousands of years.

It's just basically a radioactive element which has a long half-life, and thus will take many many years to decay, and will remain radioactive for long periods of time. The nuclear wastes from fission of U-235 have half-lives of hundreds or thousands of years, and thus will remain radioactive for extremely long periods of time.

Edit: lilly's answer isn't very correct. Radioactive waste is not toxic, it's radioactive. Meaning that it will damage DNA or other sensitive molecules, contributing to cancer. And creating space junk won't do any bad to us- there more than enough "junk" flying out there anyway (somewhere in the solar system there is human excrements from astronauts floating around). And what goes up must go down is most certainly incorrect- if the junk is out of the gravitational pull of the earth, why would it still go back down to it?.

Also, only about 15-20% of the US energy is from nuclear. For the past few decades the government has been using less and less nuclear energy, although the past few years have seen an increase in them. However, 70% of france's energy comes from Nuclear

Answer 2

a nuclear power plant always maintains a chain reaction unless they re-fuel the plant nuclear fission produces by products The most common nuclear fuels are 235U (the isotope of uranium with an atomic mass of 235) and 239Pu (the isotope of plutonium with an atomic mass of 239).

These fuels break apart into a range of chemical elements with atomic masses near 100 (fission products) the normal half life is about 703,800,000 yrs for U-235

a long lived by product is just another element that was formed during the fission process like thorium and plutonium hope this helps

Answer 3

The safety risks are not acceptable ones. Consider what the catastrophic failure at Chernobyl did to the surrounding countryside/the people that inhabited it. Yes, I most certainly had an opinion about nuclear power pre-Japan. The Japanese disaster has only strengthened my anti-nuclear resolve. I live within the the 50-mile radius of a nuclear power plant. Not too thrilled about that fact, but I don't really have any viable options relocation-wise right now. Develop solar/wind/hydro/geothermal sources of energy everywhere you can while phasing out both fossil fuels and nuclear at the same time. Learn to conserve better, too.

Answer 4

Yes. That's what keeps the reactor running. Each fission reaction generates neutrons to produce others. If it were not so, we would get "psst!" and then nothing.

Yes it does.

A daughter nucleus that has a half-life measured in years to thousands of years.

Answer 5

the long lived by-products, meaning the waste, is toxic.

we have no way of getting rid of it, and have to find safe storage.
some have suggested putting it into containers and shooting it out into space,but that would create space junk!
what goes up, must come down.

it's a real good source of electricity, produces 30-70% of usa electric, but it's very dangerous, and radio-active waste, by-product, is toxic and we have no way to get rid of it or cleanse it.

hope this helps.
it was on the HISTORY CHANNEL LAST NIGHT (MONDAY)