# Explain uranium to me **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 28, 2025, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210 "2025-06-28T01:28:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2025, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/101 "2025-07-09T23:28:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > t gets used to make some kinds of munitions. One of the minor advantages is that it is less poisonous than lead. The poisonous nature of heavy metals is that, due to the electron structure, they are able to mimic other elements / compounds, well enough to displace the correct element, but not well enough to actually work correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2025, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/102 "2025-07-09T23:35:34Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I’ll have to work it out sometime how it scales with increasing charge. @Chronos’s reply reveals that scaling. Earth has a capacitance of 700~\mu\rm{F}, so you need 1013 eV by the end, scaling linearly with charge ejected. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2025, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/103 "2025-07-09T23:54:53Z")
Not too bad, then. Only 1e23 J. Spread out over a billion seconds (31 years), it’s just 1e14 W. Just 500,000 km^2 of solar panels at 200 W/m^2. The surface area of Earth is about 150,000,000 km^2, so there’s plenty of room. That pesky solar wind is going to be a problem, though. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/104 "2025-07-10T07:19:17Z")
I have not understood the reason why you want to get rid of the Van Allen belts: are you sure this would be a good idea? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/105 "2025-07-10T08:14:03Z")
I’m purely joking with my proposal above, but draining the Van Allen belts would be a good idea if it could be done inexpensively. It wouldn’t affect our protection from cosmic rays, etc. at all. It would just make travel through the belts safer. I didn’t come up with the idea; it’s been bouncing around for decades. A usual proposal is to use long tethers: > **[High-Voltage Tethers For Enhanced Particle Scattering In Van Allen Belts](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996APS..DPP..7E06M/abstract)** > > New applications of space tethers (HVTSS) are discussed in relation with the ideafootnote Yu.V.Vasilyev, V.V.Danilov, Physics-Doklady, (1995) 342, 5. of an active experiment at the Earth's radiation belts. Two conducting strings are supposed to be... Another is to use low-frequency radio waves: > **[Hacking the Van Allen Belts](https://spectrum.ieee.org/hacking-the-van-allen-belts)** > > Could we save satellites and astronauts by wiping out the Van Allen belts? The ideas are all somewhat speculative but they aren’t completely bonkers. If it turns out to be a bad idea for some reason, we can just detonate a few nuclear weapons up there to refill the belts. We’ve done it before… ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/106 "2025-07-10T08:23:40Z")
Ah, a joke, get it. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > We’ve done it before… We (that is: you, plural you) have done a lot of stupid things in the past. I am sure we will do them in future too. Remember [**Project West Ford**](https://www.wired.com/2013/08/project-west-ford/)? It sure sounded like a good idea to someone. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > we can just detonate a few nuclear weapons up there Yes, that sounds **[promising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime)**. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/107 "2025-07-10T08:46:59Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Yes, that sounds **[promising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime)**. An amusing coincidence: > [@Pasta](#): > > For the earth-sun system, synchrotron radiation beats gravitational radiation only if the earth has an excess charge beyond 10^{29} electron charge units (plus or minus). > [@Wikipedia - Starfish Prime](#): > > The explosion released roughly 10^29 electrons into the Earth’s [magnetosphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere).[[16]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime#cite_note-Stassinopolous_2015-16) I have a new proposal! ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/108 "2025-07-10T12:22:37Z")
Yes, I saw that too. And you know another coincidence? It was 63 years ago yesterday. **[Here is another nice article](https://www.damninteresting.com/curio/starfish-prime/?utm_source=DamnInteresting)** about the event. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210/109 "2025-07-11T12:49:59Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > The poisonous nature of heavy metals is that, due to the electron structure, they are able to mimic other elements / compounds, well enough to displace the correct element, but not well enough to actually work correctly. I’m an environmental engineer and a former chemistry teacher, and that is the most succinct explanation for why heavy metals are poisonous that I’ve ever heard. Kudos! The typical explanation is none whatsoever: they just are [poisonous, that is]. The only thing I would add is that heavy metals are relatively rare, so there is little or no evolutionary pressure or selective advantage to being able to tolerate them, much less utilize them somehow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-uranium-to-me/1020210.md?page=5)