Why is there more energy in nuclear fuel than fossil fuel?
When burning fossil fuels, you’re simply making use of the energy released through chemical reactions. This energy is enough for us, but it’s not all that efficient! Nuclear fuels, however, utilise the process of nuclear fission, which is not a chemical reaction (as chemical reactions involve electrons, not nuclei). Albert Einstein showed how an enormous amount of energy can be released from a tiny mass, through the equation – E = mc² When a nucleus is split (nuclear fission), the masses of the two new nuclei don’t add up to the mass of the original nucleus. This means that there is a mass deficit an so defies the law of conservation of mass. However, since Einstein showed that energy and mass are equivalent at the sub-atomic level, we now know that this missing mass is actually converted into alot of energy! Since c² (speed of light squared) is such a huge number, a miniscule mass produces a huge amount of energy. To put it into perspective, a small amount of Hydrogen (enough to fill
