Nuclear Fission Is 83 million Times More Energetic Than Combustion of Organics

<ns3:p> Background The comparisons between the heat produced from nuclear fission and that produced by combustion has depended on the fuel employed. We demonstrate here that combustion heat is a constant with respect to atmospheric oxygen consumed and for one uranium atom to one oxygen atom the ratio of heat released is 83 million to one. Methods A 680 value data set taken from a compilation by Domalski was analyzed to evaluate the consistency of the contribution to the heat released from combustion as a function of the oxygen consumed. Complete combustion was assumed, resulting in water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen plus other oxides as necessary. Results The combustion energy released was found to be constant as a function of oxygen consumed within a standard deviation of 4%, with the distribution shown in Figure 1. The average value of 2.3 eV per oxygen atom can be compared to the energy released by the fission of a single atom of uranium 235, 193.8 MeV, yielding an 83 million to one ratio on an atom-to-atom bases. Consequently, nuclear power produces a smaller amount of waste as compared with combustion to produce equivalent power. That CO <ns3:sub>2</ns3:sub> waste has also been evaluated as a function of released energy and the results vary over a large range with 85% of the molecules exhibiting values between 240 and 360 kilograms per megawatt hour of heat. Methane combustion produced one of the lowest amounts: 178 kg/MWhr. The mass of CO <ns3:sub>2</ns3:sub> produced by combustion of methane is 140 thousand times the nuclear spent fuel mass to produce the same energy. Conclusion We have presented a simple way to estimate the energy released by combustion of organics and used that to promote the vast superiority of nuclear fission to produce energy with a minimum of environmentally polluting waste. </ns3:p>