Uranium is definitely not a fossil fuel. Uranium is a base element--a heavy metal, specifically--with radioactive and (close to) non-radioactive isotopes. To generate nuclear energy, you purify the radioactive isotope, and then generate a nuclear chain reaction, accelerating the decay of the isotope and trapping the released energy as heat, usually by converting water to steam, which drives turbines that produce electricity.
Fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) are made of hydrocarbons, which are more or less chains of carbon atoms coated with a layer of hydrogen atoms. Sometimes other stuff gets mixed in, most often atoms of oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur, but nearly all of the atomic content is hydrogen and carbon. These hydrocarbons are burned to release heat, etc. etc. as above. One way to look at the process of "burning" on a chemical level is "combining with oxygen." The hydrogen atoms are stripped off and stuck on oxygen atoms to produce water (H2O) and the carbon chains are broken up and the individual atoms hook up with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2). This process releases a lot of energy, which is why fire is hot.
So while both processes produce heat, which is then converted through a couple of intermediate steps into electricity, the sources of the heat are very different. Nuclear power plants rely on the radioactive decay of uranium, while fossil fuel plants rely on burning hydrocarbons.
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Notes -
Uranium is definitely not a fossil fuel. Uranium is a base element--a heavy metal, specifically--with radioactive and (close to) non-radioactive isotopes. To generate nuclear energy, you purify the radioactive isotope, and then generate a nuclear chain reaction, accelerating the decay of the isotope and trapping the released energy as heat, usually by converting water to steam, which drives turbines that produce electricity.
Fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) are made of hydrocarbons, which are more or less chains of carbon atoms coated with a layer of hydrogen atoms. Sometimes other stuff gets mixed in, most often atoms of oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur, but nearly all of the atomic content is hydrogen and carbon. These hydrocarbons are burned to release heat, etc. etc. as above. One way to look at the process of "burning" on a chemical level is "combining with oxygen." The hydrogen atoms are stripped off and stuck on oxygen atoms to produce water (H2O) and the carbon chains are broken up and the individual atoms hook up with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2). This process releases a lot of energy, which is why fire is hot.
So while both processes produce heat, which is then converted through a couple of intermediate steps into electricity, the sources of the heat are very different. Nuclear power plants rely on the radioactive decay of uranium, while fossil fuel plants rely on burning hydrocarbons.
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