Atomic Energy

Official estimates indicate that the atomic bomb at Hiroshima was equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. On the basis of 3.8 x 10⁹ j of energy being released by detonation of 1 ton of TNT, about 1 kg of U²³⁵ was consumed and the total mass decrease involved in the explosion was about 8.5 x 10^-4 kg.

It should be remembered that the amount of energy stored chemically in a pound of fossil fuel is enormous when compared with the amount of energy that can be stored in the same amount of dielectric of a capacitor or in the same amount of magnetic material in an inductor. However, even this relatively large amount of energy stored chemically in fossil fuels or even storage batteries becomes almost insignificant when compared with the amounts of energy involved in atomic and nuclear reactions.