Uranium is an abundant metal and is full of energy: One uranium fuel pellet creates as much energy as one ton of coal, 149 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. It does not come out of the ground ready to go into a reactor, though. It is mined and processed to create nuclear fuel.
How Is Nuclear Fuel Made?
- Before uranium goes into a reactor, it must undergo four major processing steps to take it from its raw state to usable nuclear fuel: mining and milling, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication.
- First, uranium is mined with conventional methods or by in-situ leach mining, where carbonated water is shot into underground deposits and piped up to the surface. The worldwide supply of uranium is diverse, coming primarily from Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. In the United States, uranium is mined in several western states.
- To sustain the chain reaction necessary to run a reactor, the uranium will need a high enough concentration of a specific isotope, uranium-235. Natural uranium is converted into several different forms to prepare it for enrichment. Special facilities enrich the uranium so that it can be used in a nuclear reactor. The major commercial fuel enrichment facilities are in the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Russia.
- The enriched uranium is converted again into a powder and then pressed into fuel pellets. The fuel fabricator loads these pellets into sets of closed metal tubes called fuel assemblies, which are used in nuclear reactors.
What Happens to Nuclear Fuel After It’s Been in a Reactor?
- A single fuel assembly spends about five years in a reactor on average, powering the system that generates electricity.
- Typically, every 18 to 24 months, a nuclear plant stops generating electricity to replace a third of its fuel assemblies. The removed assemblies are placed in a spent fuel pool where they cool over time.
- The radioactive byproducts remain contained in the used fuel assemblies.
- After the used fuel assemblies have cooled to the point that they no longer need to be stored underwater, they are removed from the pools and safely stored at the plant in large containers made of steel-reinforced concrete.
- Every nuclear plant stores used fuel as the industry awaits the completion of either a consolidated interim storage site or permanent disposal repository by the federal government.
Did you know that 19% of America’s electricity comes from nuclear power? That’s an incredible stat given the
fact that there are just 92 nuclear reactors operating in the United States. That’s right, 54 nuclear power plants, located in 28 states, are fueling the future with reliable electricity that we can use every day—and all the time.
They also provide more clean energy to the grid than any other energy source, accounting for half of the country’s clean energy electricity production.
But this incredible technology isn’t new.
Nuclear energy has been powering the U.S. grid for the past 6 decades and produces around 1 gigawatt of power per plant on average.
Just how much power is that exactly?
It’s kind of a lot, as you can tell from the infographic below.
Dig into other energy-related comparisons with this interactive graphic involving burritos and dynamite!
*Updated July 2022
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium has the highest atomic weight of all naturally
occurring elements. Uranium occurs naturally in low concentrations in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite. Uranium ore can be mined from open pits or underground excavations. The ore can then be crushed and treated at a mill to separate the valuable uranium from the ore. Uranium may also be dissolved directly from the ore deposits in the ground (in-situ leaching) and pumped to the surface. Uranium mined from the earth is
stored, handled, and sold as uranium oxide concentrate (U3O8). Uranium was discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth, a German chemist, who isolated an oxide of uranium while analyzing pitchblende samples from the Joachimsthal silver mines in the former Kingdom of Bohemia, located in present-day Czechia. He named his discovery “uran” after the planet Uranus. For many years, uranium was used primarily as a colorant for ceramic glazes and for tinting in early
photography. Its radioactive properties were not recognized until 1866, and its potential for use as an energy source was not manifested until the mid-20th century. Uranium is now used to power commercial nuclear reactors that produce electricity and to produce isotopes used for medical, industrial, and defense purposes around the world.Physical Properties of Uranium
Isotopic Properties of Uranium