It is not a substance that has been exhausted fuel from the reactor, but the large part of the energy is still a source. We examine the closed fuel cycle in seven steps.
Follow Cevherden reactor by shifting the journey from reactor to refuel.
It was the most decisive industry trend of the last twenty years, to turn it into the raw material instead of counting waste at the end of its life.
The situation in nuclear energy is slightly more complex. Safely manage the most intensive energy source in the universe, every step requires a measured and controlled technology chain. Nevertheless, the idea of rediklaj is not added here after: the re-evaluation of used fuel is part of the design since the first years of the industry.
Approximately 95 percent of the mass of a fuel bundle from the reactor is still uranium and plutonium formed in the reactor. The remaining small section consists of division products that suppress chain reaction and heavy actinitis. Rework is the three groups.
The story of nuclear fuel starts under the ground. Uranium ore is removed, grinded and chemically purified. The natural uranyum is U‐235 isototop, which can only be divided into 0.7 percent portion.
Rich uranium dioxide powder is pressed with millimetric tolerances. The result is a ceramic pellet weighing several grams: the large part of the division products formed in it holds in its crystal structure and works as the first security barrier of the chain.
Pellets are filled into zirconium alloy fine-walled pipes. The fuel bar is completed with the welding of pipes; the bundle that arises in a hexagonal cage of the bars is the smallest integrity unit to be installed on the reactor.
Chemical decomposition of used fuel: uranium and plutonium revolve to new fuel, only the final waste of the partition that can not really be used.
The fuel used on the open cycle is stored as a material that has completed its life. In the closed cycle, the same material is transformed into the re raw material: it goes into the production of mixed oxide fuel, if the decomposed uranium is enriched, plutonium.
This approach gives multiple results. When folding the energy obtained from the same ore, the volume and heat load of the high activity waste, which must be stored permanent, is significantly reduced.
Quick neutron reactors have a step forward: they bring the life of the known uranium resources to centuries by converting U‐238 in thermal reactors into non-fueling material.
Today, the material expected in warehouses is a reserve that will be activated as the reprocessing capacity increases. Storage facilities are not the last stop, waiting room.
Where the material is, how long it is, and in which form it is under constant registration. This accounting is the basis of both business security and international audit.
Climate targets are also about how much the electricity is produced.
Carbon dioxide is not released when working in nuclear power plants; the volume of solid waste they produce is extremely small compared to fossil fuel plants that give the same energy.
All of this small volume is not final waste. When reprocessing is activated, a stable solid jersey is converted and the volume is lessened.
Rediklaj is not a improvement added after nuclear energy; it is the form of complete technology targets since the beginning. When the cycle is closed, the rest is not waste.