Что фактически перемещается
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.
- Материал
- Uranium
- Разновидность
- Sandstone-hosted uranium recovered in situ, no rock moved at all
- Начальная точка
- Kazakhstan — Wellfields on the Chu-Sarysu and Syrdarya basins
Шаг за шагом, граница за границей
Kazakhstan · Southern Kazakhstan wellfields хранится у Kazatomprom and joint ventures (Государственный производитель)
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.
Почему именно здесь: 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 хранится у Kazatomprom (Государственный производитель)
Yellowcake
The uranium is stripped from solution onto resin, eluted and precipitated as U3O8 — a yellow-brown powder — then dried and drummed.
Что произошло с остатком: 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.
Почему именно здесь: Concentrating before transport, and before the safeguards paperwork gets heavier.
Canada · Conversion facility хранится у Converter (Рафинировщик)
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.
Что произошло с остатком: The fluorine comes from fluorspar. A mineral most people have never heard of is a precondition for nuclear fuel.
Почему именно здесь: Only a handful of commercial conversion plants exist worldwide. This is a genuine bottleneck.
France · Centrifuge plant хранится у Enricher (Рафинировщик)
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.
Что произошло с остатком: The great majority becomes depleted uranium — used for radiation shielding, ballast and armour, and otherwise stored.
Почему именно здесь: Enrichment is dual-use. Where it exists is a matter of treaty and politics as much as engineering.
France · Fuel fabrication plant хранится у Fuel fabricator (Производитель)
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.
Почему именно здесь: 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 хранится у Utility (Конечный потребитель)
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.
Почему именно здесь: Four countries, and every gram inventoried at every handover.
Это разработанный пример. Он прослеживает заявленное исходное количество материала через типовые опубликованные выходы и коэффициенты извлечения, поэтому соотношения поддаются проверке; это не запись о конкретной отгрузке. Данные о маршруте — какие страны, какие процессы и почему материал не может быть переработан в другом месте — собраны из общедоступных источников.