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Article: Nuclear Reactors
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- Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, andSecurity
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Nuclear Reactors
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LARRY GILMAN
Nuclear reactors are complex devices in which fissionable elements such as uranium, thorium, or plutonium are made to undergo a sustainable nuclear chain reaction.
This chain reaction releases energy in the form of radiation that (a) sustains the chain reaction; (b) transmutes (i.e., alters the nuclear characteristics of) nearby atoms, including the nuclear fuel itself; and (c) may be harvested as heat. Transmutation in nuclear reactors of the common but weakly fissionable nuclide uranium-238 (
238
U) into plutonium-239 (
239
Pu) is an important source of explosive material for nuclear weapons, and heat from nuclear reactors is used to ...
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