• Question: how much uranium is wasted during making energy out of nuclaer?

    Asked by Mason to Megan on 8 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Megan Seymour

      Megan Seymour answered on 8 Nov 2016:

      Roughly 10 % of the worlds energy is currently generated by nuclear power, and this makes about 10,000 tonnes of new nuclear waste each year.

      Some of this waste is ‘spent’ nuclear fuel (old fuel that has been removed from a nuclear power station once it has been used). Another large proportion of the waste is ‘depleted’ uranium- which is the waste I am interested in using.
      Before uranium is used as nuclear fuel it undergoes a process called enrichment. During enrichment uranium mined from the ground is partially separated into highly radioactive U235 (which is the stuff used as fuel) and the less radioactive U238- this is depleted uranium.

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