plutonium 2

             Should we begin to manufacture one of the most destuctive and infamous .
             substances on the face of the Earth once again? The engineers say yes, but the public says .
             no. The United States stopped making this element with the ban on manufacturing nuclear .
             weapons. But with the continuing problem with our ever diminishing energy sources, .
             some want us to begin using more nuclear energy and less energy from natural resources. .
             This paper is going to discuss what plutonium is, the advantages and disadvantages of it's .
             use, and why we should think about restarting the production of this useful element.
             In 1941, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, dicovered something .
             that would chang our planet forever. The man's name, Glenn T. Seaborg, discovered the .
             element plutonium. Plutonium or Pu #94 on the periodic table, is one of the most unstable .
             elements on the Earth. It is formed when Uranium 235, another highly unstable element, .
             absorbs a neutron. Plutonium is a silvery-white metal that has a very high density of .
             19.816 g/cm3. It has been rarely found in the earth's crust but the majority of the .
             substance has to be produced in the cores of nuclear reactors.Plutonium can be found .
             fifteen different forms, or isotopes and their mass number can range from 232-246. .
             Radionuclide batteries used in pacemakers use Pu-238, while Pu-239 is used in reactors .
             and for Nuclear weapons. This paper will focus on the isotopes Pu-238 and Pu-239.
             Plutonium can be very advantageous for the United States. It can be used for several .
             purposes. The three major advantages to using this element are for an energy source, .
             power for nuclear propulsion in space exploration and thermo-electric generators in .
             cardiac pacemakers. The first use for plutonium, nuclear power, is obviously the most.
             beneficial use. Plutonium 239 can be used to power nuclear reactors. The average nuclear .
             reactor contains about 325 kilograms of plutonium within its uranium fuel.