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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

BNC Golf balls and elephants - energy density in 9 seconds Barry Brook

Golf balls and elephants - energy density in 9 seconds

Barry Brook | 22 June 2011 URL: http://wp.me/piCIJ-1e8
I'm currently developing a short (2 minute, 30 second) animated video on nuclear power and climate change, with help from friend Ben Heard and the skills of Ron Furner and his team at Fury Films. Near the end of the vid, we talk about the vast amount of energy embodied in so-called 'nuclear waste' (or indeed, depleted uranium, or thorium). Here is a 9-second teaser (this is a draft, the final version looks better):
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watch?v=leG8frtW5Wk
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So, the premise here is that 1 golf ball of uranium equates to a lifetime of energy for a person in a high-energy-use society like Australia or the US, and that if this same energy was supplied instead by fossil fuels, it would be the equivalent to about 800 elephants worth of coal (or thereabouts).
Here is how I came up with the comparison.
First to the golf ball of uranium (Nuclear waste is mostly uranium-238 and various minor actinides; we also have large stockpiles of depleted uranium that is left over from enrichment. Further, a lump of thorium-232, if used in an appropriate reactor that can breed uranium-233 [such as a molten salt isobreeder], would also have essentially the same energy equivalence. It's a matter of picking your preferred heavy metal).
Density of uranium = 19.1 g/cc and Volume of a golf ball = 40.7 cc
So, the mass of a golf-ball-sized lump of uranium = 19.1 x 40.7... let's say 780 grams.
Okay, what is its energy content?

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