What I Assumed You Knew.
How available is uranium and especially U-235?
- There is lots of uranium, largely as oxide in several countries.
- But only 0.7% of naturally occurring uranium is U-235. Most is
U-238.
- The standard power reactors need about 4% U-235 to easily run a
safe, steady-state operation with water as the moderator and coolant.
Increasing concentration of U-235
Basic scheme:
turn uranium into a gas UF6, then enrich with:
- Centrifuges: lots of them (now used abroad).
- Gaseous Diffusion on vast scale (ORNL).
What I Assumed You Knew.
<http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/energy/Resources/Lectures/Missing.html>
[Tuesday, 24-Apr-2018 01:05:15 EDT]
Edited by: wilkins@mps.ohio-state.edu on
Thursday, 11-Oct-2007 09:29:27 EDT