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Computer generated image of AP1000. The AP1000 is a nuclear power plant designed and sold by Westinghouse Electric Company.The plant is a pressurized water reactor with improved use of passive nuclear safety and many design features intended to lower its capital cost and improve its economics.
Uranium is used in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons because it is the only naturally occurring element with a fissile isotope – uranium-235 – present in non-trace amounts. However, because of the low abundance of uranium-235 in natural uranium (which is overwhelmingly uranium-238), uranium needs to undergo enrichment so that enough ...
To reduce the concentration of Pu-240 in the plutonium produced, weapons program plutonium production reactors (e.g. B Reactor) irradiate the uranium for a far shorter time than is normal for a nuclear power reactor. More precisely, weapons-grade plutonium is obtained from uranium irradiated to a low burnup.
RBMK reactor fuel was used in Soviet-designed and built RBMK-type reactors. This is a low-enriched uranium oxide fuel. The fuel elements in an RBMK are 3 m long each, and two of these sit back-to-back on each fuel channel, pressure tube. Reprocessed uranium from Russian VVER reactor spent fuel is used to fabricate RBMK fuel.
Fission product yields by mass for thermal neutron fission of U-235 and Pu-239 (the two typical of current nuclear power reactors) and U-233 (used in the thorium cycle). This page discusses each of the main elements in the mixture of fission products produced by nuclear fission of the common nuclear fuels uranium and plutonium.
Thermal reactors consist of the following: Neutron moderator to slow down the neutrons. In light water reactors and heavy water reactors it doubles as the nuclear reactor coolant. Nuclear fuel, which is a fissile material, usually uranium. Reactor vessel that is a pressure vessel containing the coolant and reactor core.
The largest uranium producer in the United States is ramping up work just south of Grand Canyon National Park on a long-contested project that largely has sat dormant since the 1980s.
As opposed to light water thermal-neutron reactors, which use uranium-235 (0.7% of all natural uranium), fast-neutron breeder reactors use uranium-238 (99.3% of all natural uranium) or thorium. A number of fuel cycles and breeder reactor combinations are considered to be sustainable or renewable sources of energy.