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Haven't been able to verify your claim "all nuclear reactors also produce Helium as a by product". While Helium manufacture is a given for about all forms of f
by mchannon 8y ago
Haven't been able to verify your claim "all nuclear reactors also produce Helium as a by product". While Helium manufacture is a given for about all forms of fusion (if fusion ever takes off we'll barely be able to supply our party balloon demand since there's so little material needed for fusion).
Fission (as one would find in a nuclear power reactor) does not appear to generate helium. Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 appear to be the major products, the former eventually turning into Barium-137 (no alpha decay), and the latter eventually to Zirconium-90 (no alpha decay).
- yorwba 8y agoPoking around on Wikipedia, it appears that fission and its byproducts indeed do not generate alpha particles, but the enriched uranium and plutonium also undergo alpha decay, so simply collecting lots of fissile material in one place should produce a noticeable amount of helium.
- dfggdfsfsdfs 8y agoThat's how He is made < natural decay of alpha emitters getting trapped in NG wells. It works on a geological scale, but not in industrial scales < the decay rate is too low.