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Natural uranium contains about 0.72% 235 U. Depleted uranium has lower mass fractions—up to three times less—of 235 U and 234 U than natural uranium. Since 238 U has a much longer half-life than the lighter isotopes, DU is about 40% less radioactive than natural uranium.
Uranium's radioactivity can present health and environmental issues in the case of nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants or weapons manufacturing. Uranium is weakly radioactive and remains so because of its long physical half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238).
Plants absorb some uranium from soil. Dry weight concentrations of uranium in plants range from 5 to 60 parts per billion, and ash from burnt wood can have concentrations up to 4 parts per million. [30] Dry weight concentrations of uranium in food plants are typically lower with one to two micrograms per day ingested through the food people eat ...
The river's hundreds of thousands of gallons of water help dilute the uranium, tritium, and other substances that seep in, according to Washington's Department of Ecology.
The actinide series is a group of chemical elements with atomic numbers ranging from 89 to 102, [note 1] including notable elements such as uranium and plutonium.The nuclides (or isotopes) thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 occur primordially, while trace quantities of actinium, protactinium, neptunium, and plutonium exist as a result of radioactive decay and (in the case of neptunium ...
The news reports claimed the uranium levels were more than 60 times the maximum safe limit. [37] [38] In 2012, the Government of India confirmed [39] that the ground water in Malwa belt of Punjab has uranium metal that is 50% above the trace limits set by the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO). Scientific studies, based on over ...
It became popular in the U.S. and uranium was widely used to color glassware until 1943, when the government started regulating its use so that they could save uranium to build atom bombs.
It's easy to lose track of nuclear news out of Oak Ridge. Here's why the Sept. 4 announcement was so different.