Chemistry: A Volatile History to investigate. Marie Curie began her investigations by testing a uranium ore called pitchblende with an electrometer. She discovered it was four times more radioactive than pure uranium, and wondered if this was due to the presence of an even more radioactive element in the pitchblende. Curie began stockpiling tonnes of pitchblende, then in the most basic of workshops with primitive equipment she undertook a multitude of complex and dangerous procedures in an attempt to isolate this new element. In the event, Curie discovered two new elements, polonium named after her native Poland and radium. Whilst these were naturally occurring
Peak uranium amount of energy to be produced per mass unit of uranium, because U-238, which constitute 99.3% of natural uranium, is not used in conventional reactors which instead use U-235 which only represent 0.7% of natural uranium. In 1983, physicist Bernard Cohen proposed that the world supply of uranium is effectively inexhaustible, and could therefore be considered a form of renewable energy. He claims that fast breeder reactors, fueled by naturally-replenished uranium-238 extracted from seawater, could supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years., making them as sustainable in fuel availability terms as