Power. We can’t live without it, yet in the eyes of many, we can’t live with it either. Yet as the population of Australia begins to grow exponentially, so too does our power usage. In fact, over the past 30 years, the total Energy use of Australia has risen from 3000PJ (petajoules) according to the Bureau of Statistics. Australia’s current primary energy source (where 95% of our energy is derived from) is from the combustion of hydrocarbon fossil fuels, yet this has adverse side-effects towards the environment, such as being a catalyst in Global Warming. So we must begin to look a lot deeper into other energy sources, such as solar, wind and, most controversially, nuclear. However, in order to make an educated decision as to whether or not we want Nuclear Power in our country, we must investigate further a few of the concepts which affect Nuclear Power/Energy as a whole; such as Nuclear Fission, Decay and Half-Life equations. …show more content…
When he first discovered it, he (and the rest of the Scientists at that point in time) believed it to be pure Uranium, yet it was later found to have been Uranium Dioxide (UO2). This Uranium Dioxide, according to “education.jlab.org” is the usual form of the naturally radioactive Uranium, which is most commonly used to generate electricity in the Nuclear Power Industry. Uranium is naturally occurring, and consists of three isotopes: Uranium-234, Uranium-235 and Uranium-238. All three of these isotopes are radioactive, however only Uranium-235 is used in Nuclear