With the half life of the radioactive metals used in the fuel rods being thousands of years, the fuel used in reacors, i would think, should last for similar amounts of time. How come nuclear plants go through large ammount of spent fuel that then has to be stored?
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That’s like comparing the rate at which wood rots to the rate at which it *burns*. Radioactive decay is the spontaneous decomposition of unstable atoms. Nuclear fission inside a reactor is a chain-reaction which *causes* the atoms to split, harnessing the exothermic products of the reaction to heat water and drive aturbine.
The [U235 decay chain](https://www.chemistrylearner.com/uranium-235.html#:~:text=this%20radioactive%20metal.-,Uranium%2D235%20Radioactive%20Decay,decay%20energy%20of%204.679%20MeV.) goes like this:
>Uranium-235 →Thorium-231 → Protactinium-231 →Actinium-227 →Thorium-227 →Radium-223 →Radon-219 →Polonium-215 →Lead-211 →Bismuth-211 →Thallium-207→ Lead-207 (stable)
The fission products of a nuclear reactor are far less predictable, but include isotopes of Iodine, Caesium, Strontium, Xenon, and Barium. That’s because the neutrons which collide with the U235 nuclei crack them apart.
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