Christian+S

= Nuclear Energy =

The form of Energy I have chosen is Nuclear Energy. Nuclear energy is energy associated with the motion or position of the nucleus. When a nucleus moves or changes, large amounts of energy is released. This energy is the most concentrated energy, therefore it's used to power our world via nuclear plants. The two major ways of creating Nuclear energy are fission and fusion. Fusion is a process that merges two nuclei to create energy, Fission is a process that breaks apart a nucleus to release a great amount of energy and two new nuclei called 'Daughter nuclei'. Nuclear energy can also be detected through Radioactive decay, which detects the energy of the weak nuclear force working on the nucleus.

Nuclear Energy in the real world
Nuclear energy is used in Nuclear Power plants. Because of the massive amount of concentrated energy that can be harnessed when nuclei join or split, Nuclear power plants are very effective. They work by splitting Uranium nuclei, fission, and using the energy to heat water which is in turn changed to steam. This steam pushes a turbine which creates energy that relays to a generator then to our energy systems via electrical lines. The leftover steam is cooled and then turned back into water for the process to continue again.

Radioactive Decay in C-14


I performed an experiment using nuclear energy and created an abstract.

Abstract
The purpose of this experiment was to determine the Nuclear Energy of Radioactive Decay given off by the Isotopes Sr-90, Co-60, and Po-210. The Nuclear Energy was measured in Curies per minute. The disc containing each substance was placed 2 cm away from the Geiger counter. The reading for CPM was observed and recorded for each substance. The Geiger counter was set to x1 and sound mode for Sr-90 and Po-210. To measure Co-60, the Geiger counter was set to x10 and set to sound mode. The results were that Po-210 exerted the least amount of Nuclear energy, whereas Co-60 exerted the most amount of energy, about 10 times more than Po-210. Po-210 exerted 100 CPM of Nuclear energy, Sr-90 exerted about 200 CPM of Nuclear energy, and Co-60 exerted about 1000 CPM of Nuclear Energy. It was noted that all substances tested were isotopes of the original element. The experiment was successful in that the amount of Nuclear Energy these substances gave off were finally noted.