Fissile Uranium Compared to One Million Barrels of Oil
Luke suggested in the comments section of the previous post the equivalent energy of Uranium 235 to one million barrels of oil. I'm going with his calculations on this as being a cube of 15.7 cm on each edge. For those who are still learning about nuclear energy, please keep in mind that a uranium cube represented in this model would never be assembled for use in a reactor. Since I'm using Google SketchUp and not AutoCAD, I had to go with 16 cm on each edge. Here is the model of such a cube of fissile uranium:
Click image for larger view.
As you can see, the default person figure is now clearly visible. As Luke points out, uranium maintains its volume integrity after fission, the remaining product is the same size. Another graphic project would be to look at the comparative size of waste products at a later time. Looking a little closer, we can see this cube volume isn't even large enough to hold a pair of shoes.
Click image for larger view.
While the cube is too small to be compared directly to the whole cube of one million barrels of oil (it shrinks to a pixel), here it is in front of the steps of the house with part of the oil cube in the background.
Click on image for larger view.
Click on image for larger view.
For those who are familiar with nuclear energy, these comparisons are no surprise. I know there are many people out there who are still learning about nuclear and need some real world comparisons to appreciate the marvel of nuclear energy.
A special thanks goes to Luke for the great suggestion.
A special thanks goes to Luke for the great suggestion.
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1 comments:
I think this picture overstates the case that nuclear is a concentrated source of energy. It is concentrated but it might be more accurate to show the size of the uranium used in a power plant. Let's say 5% U235 and 95% U238 is enriched reactor fuel. Your uranium cube would need to be 20 times larger. Still small but more meaningful.
The next step would be to show the size of the uranium before it is enriched. Natural uranium contains about .7% U235. So your cube of yellowcake would be 140 times bigger.
Now, how big would the ore be that the yellow cake comes from? Please correct me, but my guess is that an ore with 2% uranium would be high grade ore. So now the cube would need to be 7000 times
bigger. This is still smaller than the house, but we are now comparing two items that are naturally occurring in the earth. Seems like a fairer comparison to me.
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