How can we be mining for radio active material if the earth was formed so long ago, would these materials not have run the course of depletion already? or is man kind creating them ? like Uranium or Plutonium
In: Chemistry
Lots of short-halflife radio-isotopes used for medical or industrial purposes have to be manufactured in specialized reactors or particle accelerators.
Cosmic radiation from space ensures an ongoing generation of isotopes such as Carbon-14. Radiation from lightning is also responsible for shortlived isotopes of Oxygen and Nitrogen.
The majority of the isotopes used for nuclear fuel has decayed into other elements, but because they have such massive halflifes, we can still mine them, or extract useful isotopes from spent nuclear fuel.
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