|
Magnox Reprocessing Plant
The Magnox Reprocessing Plant is a former nuclear reprocessing facility at Sellafield in northern England, which operated from 1964 to 2022. The plant used PUREX chemistry (based on tributyl phosphate (TBP)) to extract plutonium and uranium from used nuclear fuel originating primarily from Magnox reactors. The plant was originally constructed and operated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), but in 1971 control was transferred to British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL). From 2005 the plant was operated by Sellafield Ltd. Operation The plant was commissioned in 1964 as both a replacement for the UK's First Generation Reprocessing Plant, and to process spent fuel from the national fleet of Magnox reactors. The First generation Plant was then converted into a pre-handling plant for Magnox reprocessing and was recommissioned in 1969. In 1973, after both plants had been shut down for one year for maintenance, a violent reaction called a "blowback" occurred in the First ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Carlisle. Cumbria is predominantly rural, with an area of and a population of 500,012; this makes it the third-largest ceremonial county in England by area but the eighth-smallest by population. Carlisle is located in the north; the towns of Workington and Whitehaven lie on the west coast, Barrow-in-Furness on the south coast, and Penrith, Cumbria, Penrith and Kendal in the east of the county. For local government purposes the county comprises two Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas, Westmorland and Furness and Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland. Cumbria was created in 1974 from the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium
Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium radioactive decay, radioactively decays, usually by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of this decay varies between 159,200 and 4.5 billion years for different isotopes of uranium, isotopes, making them useful for dating the age of the Earth. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 (which has 146 neutrons and accounts for over 99% of uranium on Earth) and uranium-235 (which has 143 neutrons). Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordial nuclide, primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few Parts-per notation#Parts-per expressions, parts per million in soil, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mixer-settler
Mixer settlers are a class of mineral process equipment used in the solvent extraction process. A mixer settler consists of a first stage that ''mixes'' the phases together followed by a quiescent ''settling'' stage that allows the phases to separate by gravity. Mixer A mixing chamber where a mechanical agitator brings in intimate contact the feed solution and the solvent to carry out the transfer of solute(s). The mechanical agitator is equipped with a motor which drives a mixing and pumping turbine. This turbine draws the two phases from the settlers of the adjacent stages, mixes them, and transfers this emulsion to the associated settler. The mixer may consists of one or multiple stages of mixing tanks. Common laboratory mixers consist of a single mixing stage, whereas industrial scale copper mixers may consist of up to three mixer stages where each stage performs a combined pumping and mixing action. Use of multiple stages allows a longer reaction time and also minimizes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reprocessed Uranium
Reprocessed uranium (RepU) is the uranium recovered from nuclear reprocessing, as done commercially in France, the UK and Japan and by nuclear weapons states' military plutonium production programs. This uranium makes up the bulk of the material separated during reprocessing. Commercial LWR spent nuclear fuel contains on average (excluding cladding) only four percent plutonium, minor actinides and fission products by weight. Despite it often containing more fissile material than natural uranium, reuse of reprocessed uranium has not been common because of low prices in the uranium market of recent decades, and because it contains undesirable isotopes of uranium. Given sufficiently high uranium prices, it is feasible for reprocessed uranium to be re- enriched and reused. It requires a higher enrichment level than natural uranium to compensate for its higher levels of 236U which is lighter than 238U and therefore concentrates in the enriched product. As enrichment concentrate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnesium
Magnesium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic table), it occurs naturally only in combination with other elements and almost always has an oxidation state of +2. It reacts readily with air to form a thin Passivation (chemistry), passivation coating of magnesium oxide that inhibits further corrosion of the metal. The free metal burns with a brilliant-white light. The metal is obtained mainly by electrolysis of magnesium Salt (chemistry), salts obtained from brine. It is less dense than aluminium and is used primarily as a component in strong and lightweight magnesium alloy, alloys that contain aluminium. In the cosmos, magnesium is produced in large, aging stars by the sequential addition of three Helium nucleus, helium nuclei to a carbon nucleus. When such stars explo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dounreay
Dounreay (; ) is a small settlement and the site of two large nuclear establishments on the north coast of Caithness Caithness (; ; ) is a Shires of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Scotland. There are two towns, being Wick, Caithness, Wick, which was the county town, and Thurso. The count ... in the Highland (council area), Highland area of Scotland. It is on the A836 road west of Thurso. The nuclear establishments were created in the 1950s. They were the Nuclear Power Development Establishment (NPDE), now known as NRS Dounreay, for the development of civil fast breeder reactors, and the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment, Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment (NRTE), a military Nuclear marine propulsion, submarine reactor testing facility. Both these no longer perform their original research functions and will be completely decommissioned. The two establishments have been a major element in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bellona Report
The Bellona Foundation is an international environmental NGO headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with branches in Europe and North America. Founded in 1986 by Frederic Hauge and Rune Haaland as a direct action protest group to curb Norway's oil and gas industry pollution, it grew to be multi-disciplinary and multinational in scope and maintains offices in Oslo, Brussels, Berlin and Vilnius. In 2022, Bellona ended activities in Russia and relocated experts to the Vilnius, Lithuania office to assist Ukraine with environmental challenges resulting from the Russian invasion. In 2023, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office recognized Bellona as an "undesirable organization". Bellona works with ecologists, engineers, economists, attorneys, journalists, specialists in the natural and social sciences, to accomplish its objectives. History In 1994, the Bellona Foundation's report "Sources of Radioactive Contamination in Murmansk and Archangel Counties" raised serious concerns about the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruthenium
Ruthenium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ru and atomic number 44. It is a rare transition metal belonging to the platinum group of the periodic table. Like the other metals of the platinum group, ruthenium is unreactive to most chemicals. Karl Ernst Claus, a Russian scientist of Baltic-German ancestry, discovered the element in 1844 at Kazan State University and named it in honor of Russia. (He used the Latin name '' Ruthenia'', which can have other meanings, but specifically stated that the element was named in honor of his "motherland".) Ruthenium is usually found as a minor component of platinum ores; the annual production has risen from about 19 tonnes in 2009 to some 35.5 tonnes in 2017. Most ruthenium produced is used in wear-resistant electrical contacts and thick-film resistors. A minor application for ruthenium is in platinum alloys and as a chemical catalyst. A new application of ruthenium is as the capping layer for extreme ultraviolet photoma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institute For Energy And Environmental Research
The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) is an anti-nuclear organization which focuses on the environmental safety of nuclear weapons production, ozone layer depletion, and other issues relating to energy. IEER publishes a variety of books on energy-related issues, conducts workshops for activists on nuclear issues, and sponsors international symposia and educational outreach projects. IEER was established in 1987 and is based in Takoma Park, Maryland. Arjun Makhijani is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. See also * Anti-nuclear groups in the United States * Efficient energy use * List of nuclear accidents * Nuclear whistleblowers * Nuclear safety * Renewable energy commercialization Renewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are already mature and economically competitive, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Used Nuclear Fuel
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 constituents than when it started. Nuclear fuel rods become progressively more radioactive (and less thermally useful) due to neutron activation as they are fissioned, or "burnt", in the reactor. A fresh rod of low enriched uranium pellets (which can be safely handled with gloved hands) will become a highly lethal gamma emitter after 1–2 years of core irradiation, unsafe to approach unless under many feet of water shielding. This makes their invariable accumulation and safe temporary storage in spent fuel pools a prime source of high level radioactive waste and a major ongoing issue for future permanent disposal. Nature of spent fuel Nanomaterial pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutonium
Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that is pyrophoric. It is radioactive and can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous. Plutonium was first synthesized and isolated in late 1940 and early 1941, by deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. First, neptunium-238 (half-life 2.1 days) was synthesized, which then beta-decayed to form the new element with atomic number 94 and atomic weight 238 (half-life 88 years). Since uranium had been named after the planet Uranus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North West England
North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,417,397 in 2021. It is the Countries of the United Kingdom by population, third-most-populated region in the United Kingdom, after the South East England, South East and Greater London. The largest settlements are Manchester and Liverpool. It is one of the three regions, alongside North East England and Yorkshire and the Humber, that make up Northern England. Subdivisions The official Regions of England, region consists of the following Subdivisions of England, subdivisions: The region has the following sub-divisions: After abolition of the Greater Manchester and Merseyside County Councils in 1986, power was transferred to the metropolitan boroughs, making them equivalent to unitary authorities. In April 2011, Greater Manchester gained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
