Nuclear Technology
Burnup of nuclear fuel is expressed in gigawatt-days per metric ton of heavy metal, where heavy metal means actinides like thorium, uranium, plutonium, etc., including both fissile and fertile material. It does not include elements such as oxygen that may be bonded to the fuel metals, or cladding materials such as zirconium, which might be considered heavy metals by some other standards.
Read more about this topic: Heavy Metal (chemistry)
Famous quotes containing the words nuclear and/or technology:
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Our technology forces us to live mythically, but we continue to think fragmentarily, and on single, separate planes.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)