Breeder reactors generate more fuel than they consume. Is this a violation of the conservation of energy? Explain please.
2007-06-12 04:21:07 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
No, all the energy that is produced in heat AND in the nuclear potential in the bred fuel was in the original fuel. You don't actually get more energy than you start with.
The handy thing about a breeder reactor, though, is that you don't need a continuous input of refined uranium. Regular old straight-from-the-ground (or even depleter) uranium, combined with the bred Plutonium will sustain the reaction.
The depleted uranium has about as much energy as the enriched uranium. It's just harder to induce fission. So you mix it with the plutonium to get it to split and then use some of the energy to make more plutonium. So you could say the plutonium is like a catalyst to allow fission of low-quality uranium.
2007-06-12 04:25:00 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
No. It is not. You should look at the law of conservation of mass and energy in total perspective. Uranium 238 or Thorium 232 which are fertile are converted into Pu239 or U233 by absorption of neutrons and beta decay. Pu and U233 are fissile and hence can continue to produce energy by fission.
Each fission reaction produces 2 or 3 neutrons of which only 1 is needed to continue the fission chain reaction. If 1 neutron is used to convert U238 or Th232 into a fissile material like Pu239 or U233, the breeding ratio is supposed to be 1, and some of those nuclei undergo fission and the increased neutron emission can produce more fissile material. This is in short the principle of breeding.
In a fast reactor, the loss of neutrons by absorption in other non-fertile materials is generally less and thus the neutron economy is favorable for breeding using a blanket of thorium.
The reactor physics is complicated but there is no violation of any conservation laws.
2007-06-12 11:54:45 · answer #2 · answered by Swamy 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Breeder reactors do not generate more fuel than they consume. Rather, some of the non-fissile uranium fuel is converted to plutonium. Nothing is created, just altered.
2007-06-12 11:26:06 · answer #3 · answered by JLynes 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋