As Francium is the most unstable element, how much more energy will it generate if it is split compared to, let’s say Uranium?
In: Physics
Natural radioactive decay tends to occur with small pieces breaking off of the atom. This include alpha decay (helium nuclei with an atomic mass of around 4) and beta decay (a neutron turning into a proton and loosing the mass of an electron). These small decay steps tend to put out smaller amounts of energy than the induced fission of Uranium, where the Uranium splits into several large pieces at once.
That said, the main reason that radioactive decay is hard to use for power generation is because of the rate at which it occurs. With a Uranium fission reactor, you can control the rate of fission and increase it to the point where you get useful power. With radioactive decay, the decay occurs at a fixed rate, which is usually too slow to generate useful power.
There are a number of isotopes which decay quickly and put out enough power to be useful. The most well known is Plutonium 238, which is used to power space probes. The problem is that these isotopes are difficult to come by, the only way to get them on earth is to make them inside a special nuclear reactor. Some radioactive isotopes decay so quickly that its impossible to create and gather much of it in one place so that you could use it for power generation. For instance Radon, which is a gas, is produced very slowly by natural uranium, but it decays within a few days, meaning there is never more than a tiny amount of it around, and if you tried to collect it, it would disappear faster than your could realistically gather more.
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