Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and, depending on its point along the nuclear fuel cycle , it will have different isotopic ...
If reprocessing is undertaken only to reduce the radioactivity level of spent fuel it should be taken into account that spent nuclear fuel becomes less radioactive over time. After 40 years its radioactivity drops by 99.9%, [63] though it still takes over a thousand years for the level of radioactivity to approach that of natural uranium. [64]
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a timetable and procedure for constructing a permanent, underground repository for high-level radioactive waste by the mid-1990s, and provided for some temporary storage of waste, including spent fuel from 104 civilian nuclear reactors that produce about 19.4% of electricity there. [38]
High-level waste is the highly radioactive waste material resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, including liquid waste produced directly in reprocessing and any solid material derived from such liquid waste that contains fission products in sufficient concentrations; and other highly radioactive material that is determined, consistent with existing law, to require permanent ...
Nuclear power plants in the United States generate about 2,000 metric tons of nuclear waste (or “spent fuel”) per year. Nuclear waste recycling is a critical avenue of energy innovation Skip ...
The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the front end , which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the service period in which the fuel is used during reactor operation, and steps in the back end , which are necessary to safely ...
A robot has, for the first time since the 2011 meltdown, retrieved a piece of radioactive fuel from the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.. The remote-controlled robot, named ...
Workers have begun loading radioactive fuel into a second new nuclear reactor in Georgia, utilities said Thursday, putting the reactor on a path to begin generating electricity in the coming months.