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Article #223Re: What's wrong with geothermal?
From: Tim Josling
Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:51
Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:51
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2711 bytes
Greg Locock wrote: > > I'm sorry, you are right. Alpha and beta decay are distinct from > fission. > > Regards > > Greg Locock Alpha decay is not really fundamentally different from fission. With alpha decay, as with other forms of fission, the nucleus splits into two parts. It is just that with alpha decay one part consists of two protons and two neutrons ie an alpha particle. With other forms of fission, the two parts consist of quite large nuclei, often of roughly similar size. With alpha decay the mechanism of decay is thought to be quantum tunnelling - the "alpha particle" gets close to the edge of the nucleus and tunnels through the potential barrier. Having escaped, it is driven away at high speed by eletric repulsion. With the more usual forms of fission, the large nucleus is unstable, a bit like a large drop of water. Either spontaneously or as a result of being hit by a neutron, it breaks up into two parts. Beta decay is indeed another thing altogether, governed by the weak force. Tim Josling
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X-Google-Thread: 10c480,5f0137fe89979e1d X-Google-Thread: 105543,5f0137fe89979e1d X-Google-Attributes: gid10c480,gid105543,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news2.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news1.optus.net.au!optus!snewsf0.syd.ops.aspac.uu.net!ken-transit.news.telstra.net!lon-in.news.telstra.net!news.telstra.net!news-south.connect.com.au!news.melbpc.org.au!not-for-mail From: Tim Josling <tej_at_melbpc.org.au_rubbish@nospam.com> Newsgroups: aus.environment.misc,aus.invest Subject: Re: What's wrong with geothermal? Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 11:51:13 +1100 Organization: Melbourne PC User Group Inc Lines: 28 Message-ID: <en9m6v$djp$1@possum.melbpc.org.au> References: <en4jub$rl8$1@news-02.connect.com.au> <MPG.2000942a106031ce98a258@news.bigpond.com> <en59h3$rh0$1@news-02.connect.com.au> <Xns98A9E5F726E6777777777777777777777@211.29.133.50> <en6ms0$vd$1@news-02.connect.com.au> <Xns98AAAFC556DED77777777777777777777@211.29.133.50> <en7l99$jfc$1@news-02.connect.com.au> <Xns98AB58450198177777777777777777777@211.29.133.50> NNTP-Posting-Host: a2-26.melbpc.org.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: possum.melbpc.org.au 1167612960 13945 203.12.157.26 (1 Jan 2007 00:56:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@melbpc.org.au NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 00:56:00 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030225 X-Accept-Language: en, en-us In-Reply-To: <Xns98AB58450198177777777777777777777@211.29.133.50>