They're not the same reactions

Normal decay is random. A U-235 decays and then nothing else happens, there's no chain reaction

In nuclear reactors the fuel is refined and set up in the reactor so it'll be critical so each atom that splits causes one other atom to split. Now you're not waiting for each one to randomly breakdown by instead trigging a chain reaction that works its way through the fuel fairly rapidly splitting the available atoms into smaller ones. If they need more power from the reactor they briefly adjust the control rods so each split triggers more than one other split to get up to a higher power level then reduce it back to 1-1 to hold at that level. The more power you need to pull from the reactor the faster you need to burn through the fuel

They also don't burn through all the fuel of the fuel rod, but it starts building up byproducts that muck with the power you can get out of it so they have to swap it out. Unfortunately the byproducts are wayyy less stable than the starting uranium/plutonium so now the random decay is occurring at a much faster rate creating a lot more radiation but less useful kinetic energy(heat) from the process. The really angry byproducts are mostly cleared out after a year because they decay that rapidly

Wouldn't moving the rods further apart make less neutrons hit others? I'd think that would kill the chain reaction.

I did not say they had a good human rights record.

More simply: a fission reactor is designed to artificially increase (EDIT: decrease - rate go up, half life go down) the half-life of materials by a factor of a million or so, so as to release millions of years of potential decay in just a few years. It does this by using one decay to trigger another, which triggers another, and so on.

A fission reactor is actively smashing the fuel to pieces, in order to release the energy faster. There are RTGs that only use the normal decay as its energy source, but they produce far less energy.

You're comparing natural decay with induced fission.

In ambient conditions, radioactive elements with unstable atomic structure are basically falling apart slowly. In turn, they only released a small amount of energy as they do so.

With fission, you speed up the process by shooting a bunch neutrons at the radioactive atoms so they fall apart much, much faster. So much faster that neutrons in the radioactive atoms explode out, hit other atoms and cause them to break apart too. If the effect is strong enough, you get a chain reaction that produces a lot of energy (but also causes all your radioactive fuel to "fall apart" faster).

Natural decay is a rickety building falling apart slowly over years or decades into rubble. Fission is when you topple that rickety building so that it hits the rickety building beside it, which then also tips over and hits another building, and another, etc. domino effect.

Economy of scale is a huge factor. It is a lot cheaper per unit to make 1 million refrigerators than it is to make 100.

Best explanation everrrr!!! Thank you so much. You're wonderful at explaining things 🙌😄😄.

You may want to ask the Uyghurs about that.

Yes, all true and good points. I was explaining how they did it though.

Let's say you make lemonade. You go to the grocery store and buy lemons, juice them, add a bit of water and sugar and set it in a jug outside your house with a table with "Fresh Lemonade Sale $2." You might earn $0.10 profit off of this. Which isn't enough to be worth your time. So instead you start charging for $2.50 to get that sweet sweet $0.60 per sale.

Now what if instead of having to buy lemons... the government just gave them to you? And the water too.... it would be much cheaper for you to produce so you could sell for even less. That's what happens with China. It has a lot of state owned companies in key sectors providing resources to private companies at incredibly subsidized rates. All of China's state owned enterprises are its biggest corporations. This allows companies to get supplies for assembly and manufacturing at incredibly low input prices compared to what the US would get..

But let's say you want to expand and have a second lemonade stand. You need to hire someone. But that pesky minimum wage law says you have to hire them at $10/hour. That means said person has to sell 40 lemonades an hour in order for you to turn a profit. Impossible, you'd never do that. China doesn't have labor laws that protect their workers in the same way. This makes it a lot easier for businesses to pop up when demand is hot and shut down when it's cold. Whereas with western companies it's very difficult to fire people and the process can take a lot longer.

Finally there's currency manipulation. The currency of China is called the Renminbi (translates to People's Money) and it's a suspicious currency that always seem artificially devalued. When your currency is worth less it makes your goods artificially cheaper for those buying them and it allows you to export more. Most countries WANT to have a currency worth less than the USD while also being able to roughly maintain their standard of living. How currency manipulation works is when you want to buy something you make your currency worth more and when you want to sell you make it worth less.

For example during the Christmas buying months the Chinese Renminbi crashed in price. Why would it crash in price during peak buying season for cheap Chinese goods? And then it's now up 12% since Christmas. For the sake of comparison the Canadian dollar is up by 0.5% and the Euro is the exact same price it was near Christmas.

China has been accused of manipulating their price for a long time and with the way they manage their currency your lemonade business wouldn't.... stand.... a chance

[removed]

this just isn't entirely true, you're only being fed negatives of china, hyper inflated under the microscope of scrutiny. while the people do protest in china, the govt also listens. there's a reason they've kept it together for so long, no matter how much people wish it to fail. there is no comparison to the cultural revolution times, that's a ridiculous statement to make and completely ahistorical. the contradictions under those times were of a population boom and an industrial boom counteracted with widespread famines and other issues. the stability of china now isn't even comparable to the stability of it then.

[removed]

>chinese people are overwhelmingly positive about their govt

There is growing discontent in the last few years. Economy and standard of living is not keeping up with expectation and the draconian measures to control covid has brought up comparisons to the cultural revolution times.

Labour is not that cheap anymore. Environmental regulations have also been increasing in the last few decades. That's why a lot of industries have shifted to Vietnam and other south east Asian countries, and China is doing a lot more technology based manufacturing.

[removed]

chinese people are overwhelmingly positive about their govt, without this balance, their govt wouldnt exist. they already went through a revolution and are now experiencing the fruits of that revolution and handling of the country by the govt. to imply the people are owned by the state diminishes these facts that the govt wouldnt exist without the people. its pushing stereotypes that the chinese people are mindless and have no choice. these circumstances that have given them access to a booming middle class and better living standards than a lot of other countries. none of this happened by mistake, it took a century of hard work by the people. assuming things like this prove people have no idea how the country works which is built on centuries of anti-asian rhetoric, you don't have to go that far back to find chinese exclusion acts etc pushed by govt's banning chinese people from their countries (america)

[removed]

It is not based on politics but on ignorant assumptions, which is why it is boarding on racism.

Yes, they do not have as free a political state as many Western countries, but they are not owned by anyone.

China has a largely free market with strategic state intervention as well as many state owned companies competing in this market. They have a massive supply of cheap but often well-educated labour, low regulatory costs including environmental costs as well as labour costs.

The state subsidises many industries, especially those producing raw materials such as steel and many others. Cheap state backed loans as well as land to build production on are often available.

So cheap labour, low environmental costs, and cheap raw materials added to economies of scale have allowed low-cost mass production to flourish.

Thank you!

> boarding on racist

What? How?! This is about politics not race.

Because they take the environmental impact of producing things. This is one of the major factors, plus china has the most abundant supply of rare earth metals, most are mined in China so it makes no sense to export them to produce elsewhere.

You've also got labour costs, aside from wages (no idea what Chinese wages are like in a factory) but in the UK for instance an employer has to pay for pensions, taxes on the site, national insurance contribution on the employee itself.

What you could do at work, is look at your salary, and then ask your HR team what the actual cost is per worker. A fair amount of employers will have a typical cost per desk or workstation which will be substantially higher than you expect.

My old company was an insurance broker based in London, the average cost per seat as it were was around £65k but the mean wage was in the 30s.

[removed]