URANUS & The Radioactive Metals
Along with atomic weaponry came the ‘peaceful’ development of atomic power generation. By 1954 the first atomic power station began operating in the USSR. Then came the first atomic ice breaker called the Lenin, with a small lump of uranium replacing thousands of tons of oil or coal, and the Arktika, which after 3 years navigated its way through the ice sheet of the Arctic Ocean to reach the North Pole.5
It is a curious fact that plutonium, a product of uranium, ultimately provided the electrical energy for the Voyager spacecraft to reach Uranus, its cosmic ‘parent.’
THE METALLIC URANIUMS
Unlike the other metals described in previous chapters, I have never seen metallic uranium and probably never will. Its production and storage is surrounded by the highest security.
Described as a radioactive metallic element, uranium is silvery white in colour and moderately malleable and ductile. It is slightly paramagnetic but is a poor conductor of electricity. Almost as hard as steel and with a weight close to that of gold, uranium has the highest atomic number (92) of the elements found naturally on earth (which, according to nuclear physics, means there are 92 protons in the nucleus). Elements of a higher number such as neptunium (93), plutonium (94), americium (95) etc., are man-made. Scientists hypothesize that uranium is the product of the radioactive decay of other elements that once existed on earth, but are no longer found on this planet.7
Uranium is never found naturally in its pure metallic state, but is extracted from the many types of uranium ores. Several hundred of these uranium containing minerals have been identified and the richest of these are uraninite U02, the dark bluish-black mineral pitchblende U308, which always contains helium, and carnotite. Ore deposits are never very concentrated, atypical ore contains less than 0.3% uraninite or pitchblende, so huge quantities of the ore have to be mined to produce very small, and very expensive, amounts of uranium.
Uranium has 16isotopes and all but three are human-made. They decay to give off alpha particles to form isotopes of the element thorium. The decay of these isotopes finally ends in stable isotopes of lead. Isotopes are described as atoms of an element that have the same atomic number but different atomic weights.
The most common is called uranium-238 which makes up more than 99% of naturally occurring uranium. The next most common isotope is the rare U-235, which in the eyes of nuclear physicists is one of the most important substance in the world, for the simple reason that is the only naturally occurring substance which fissions easily.
Another substance that fissions readily is plutonium-239, a substance produced by the neutron bombardment ofU-238. This means that it splits into two smaller nuclei of approximately equal size, releasing large amounts of energy. (It is this unsymmetrical splitting of the uranium atom that researcher Carl Krafft uses as one point in evidence for the vortexian rather than the nuclear structure of the atom, although this subject is too complex to enter into here.8)
Fission is brought about by bombarding the material to be fissioned with neutrons, so, for example, when the U-235 nucleus absorbs a bombarding neutron it may be split into a nucleus of barium-141 and a nucleus of krypton-92, or iodine-137 and yttrium-97, or lanthanum-143 and bromine-90. Many other combinations are possible and these are called fission products. Fission is the reaction used in nuclear power stations to produce heat, to create steam to drive the turbines, and in atomic bombs to produce the explosion.
The third isotope U-234 occurs naturally only in trace amounts.
After grinding and other processes, the uranium ore is leached and through elaborate processes is converted to uranyl-nitrate from which uranium compounds or uranium metal may be obtained. Among the most common methods used to separate uranium isotopes for medical, industrial, military and industrial uses, are gaseous diffusion, centrifuges and laser techniques.
Uranium is very reactive, so easily oxidized that in powdered form it ignites spontaneously in air. It decomposes water, and combines directly with many gases. Although inert in alkaline solutions, it reacts with acids to form uranium compounds, which is why it is found more often in acidic rocks, such as granite, than basalt. It melts at 2070°F and boils at 6904°F, and chemically is related to chromium, molybdenum and tungsten.
Uranium is extremely toxic, both chemically and radio logically, which is why the disposal of uranium waste products is one of the gravest problems facing modern civilization.
“Far out in the desert wasteland of eastern Washington, at the Atomic Energy Commission’s gigantic Hanford plutonium works, radioactive elements surge in vast underground tanks — a pent-up sea of useless energy which is a constant worry to the scientists who unwillingly created it. This deadly broth of fission products is the garbage of the atomic age.”9
In 1991 there were 111 nuclear reactors in operation in the U.S. producing thousands of gallons of radioactive waste a day. And where does this waste go? The containers are dumped in the sea to eventually corrode and leak out into the water, or buried underground they remain to contaminate our planet for thousands of years. It’s also been suggested by experts to send the containers into space, or even into the Sun! Some of the so-called depleted uranium is used for irradiating the food found on our supermarket shelves; some is ploughed into our agricultural lands for use as a ‘fertilizer.’
A recent report stated that the bill for cleaning up defense related pollution at government sites in the U.S. alone could triple to $12 billion a year by the year 2000.
NUCLEAR TEMPLES OF DEATH
Standing in gloomy isolation like the temples of some alien and sinister religion, the concrete domes and chimneys of nuclear reactors rise ominously from a once peaceful countryside. With good reason they are regarded with apprehension and fear, especially after the disaster of Chernobyl.
“I am familiar with the feelings of operators at the beginning of an accident,” writes Gregori Medvedev, the chief engineer at Chernobyl in the 1970s. “In the first split second you experience a feeling of numbness, of complete collapse within your chest and a cold wave of fright…the needles of the automatic printer drums and the monitoring instruments are swinging in all directions.”10