O que está realmente em movimento
Kazakh uranium is dissolved underground and pumped up as a solution — nothing is blasted and no waste rock is moved. It then passes through conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication, each of which exists in only a handful of countries and each of which is under international safeguards.
- O material
- Uranium
- A variedade
- Sandstone-hosted uranium recovered in situ, no rock moved at all
- Onde começa
- Kazakhstan — Wellfields on the Chu-Sarysu and Syrdarya basins
Passo a passo, e fronteira a fronteira
Kazakhstan · Southern Kazakhstan wellfields detido por Kazatomprom and joint ventures (Produtor estatal)
Mining without a mine
A mildly acidic solution is injected through wells into the ore-bearing sandstone, dissolves the uranium, and is pumped back to surface through recovery wells. There is no pit, no shaft and no tailings dam.
Por que aqui: In-situ recovery only works in permeable, water-saturated sandstone with the right chemistry. Kazakhstan has an unusual amount of it, which is why it became the largest producer.
Kazakhstan · Central processing plant detido por Kazatomprom (Produtor estatal)
Yellowcake
The uranium is stripped from solution onto resin, eluted and precipitated as U3O8 — a yellow-brown powder — then dried and drummed.
O que aconteceu ao restante: Note the units. 200 tU is 236 t U3O8 — mixing tonnes of uranium with tonnes of oxide is the classic error in this industry's reporting.
Por que aqui: Concentrating before transport, and before the safeguards paperwork gets heavier.
Canada · Conversion facility detido por Converter (Refinador)
Conversion to a gas
Yellowcake is purified and converted to uranium hexafluoride, which becomes a gas just above room temperature — the only practical form for enrichment.
O que aconteceu ao restante: The fluorine comes from fluorspar. A mineral most people have never heard of is a precondition for nuclear fuel.
Por que aqui: Only a handful of commercial conversion plants exist worldwide. This is a genuine bottleneck.
France · Centrifuge plant detido por Enricher (Refinador)
Enrichment
Thousands of centrifuges in cascade separate uranium-235 from uranium-238 by mass, raising the fissile fraction from 0.7% to 3–5%. Most of the feed leaves as depleted tails.
O que aconteceu ao restante: The great majority becomes depleted uranium — used for radiation shielding, ballast and armour, and otherwise stored.
Por que aqui: Enrichment is dual-use. Where it exists is a matter of treaty and politics as much as engineering.
France · Fuel fabrication plant detido por Fuel fabricator (Fabricante)
Pellets and rods
Converted to uranium dioxide powder, pressed into ceramic pellets the size of a fingertip, sintered, ground to tolerance and sealed into zirconium alloy tubes bundled into assemblies.
Por que aqui: The cladding is zirconium with the hafnium removed — two chemically near-identical metals that had to be separated for this to work at all.
France · Reactor detido por Utility (Utilizador final)
About a year of electricity
Loaded into the core. One pellet holds roughly the energy of a tonne of coal. A large reactor's annual load fits in a few shipping containers.
Por que aqui: Four countries, and every gram inventoried at every handover.
Este é um exemplo elaborado. Acompanha uma quantidade inicial declarada através de rendimentos e recuperações típicos publicados, pelo que as proporções são verificáveis; não é o registo de uma remessa específica. Os factos relativos à rota — quais os países, quais os processos e por que o material não pode simplesmente ser tratado noutro local — são compilados a partir de informação pública.