Wednesday, October 13, 2010

12 October Class Summary

Hi everyone…..

As usual, we had a nuclear class on Tuesday evening. It was a long class and we had gained a lot of interesting information regarding nuclear. The main topic of the lesson is about the nuclear fuel cycle.
First of all, I will show u the illustration of the nuclear fuel cycle so all of u will experience better understanding on this topic.



                                                    The illustration of nuclear fuel cycle


As you can see, nuclear fuel cycle normally starts at the mining process and ends at the disposal process.

For this post, i'll just give some info on Uranium mining and type of  milling used.
                              
Uranium mining is a process of extracting uranium ore from the earth.Most of the uranium ore presents at relatively low concentration. Normally, the uranium ore contain as little as 0.1% uranium or less.Uranium ore is usually mined in large scale to get wanted amount of uranium. There are two types of method used to extract the uranium ore from the earth which are excavations (open-pit mining and underground mining) and in-situ leach technique. Majority proportion of uranium is produced by in-situ leach technique.

Open pit mining












Underground mining


In situ leach technique





The comparison between underground mining and open- pit mining:



















Underground mining
Open pit mining




extraction of uranium ore from deep underground
extraction of uranium ore near the earth surface




small surface disturbance
large surface disturbance




the materials (earth composition) removed is less to access the ore
the materials (earth composition) removed is large to access ore






increased ventilation to protect from airborne radiation of exposure
open pit is sloped to prevent collapse





















Some facts about In-situ leach technique:
  • Ore is extracted by dissolving and pumping pregnant solution method
  • Little surface disturbance.
  • Proper arrangement of In-situ leach plant
  • Safe,controllable and more environment friendly

Uranium milling is where uranium is extracted from the ore. Uranium milling produces
a uranium oxide concentrate which is also known as ''yellow cake''. This concentrate 
contains more than 80% uranium. 



                                                                                A drum of yellowcake



How does the yellowcake produce? not this Yellow Cake



The yellow cake is produced in a nuclear mill. First, uranium contain is extracted 
from the ore by leaching, in which either a strong acid or a strong alkaline solution is
used to dissolve the uranium oxide. Then the uranium oxide is precipitated and removed 
from the solution. After drying and heatingit is packed in normal 200-litre drum as a
concentrate which is known as 'yellowcake'.
Do you know that 27% of the global uranium is produced by Kazakhstan.





As you can see from the graph, Canada,Australia and Kazakhstan are the top three
uranium producer. The three countries produce more than half of world uranium production.
Other countries that act as uranium producer are Russia, Nigeria,Namibia,Uzbekistan,USA,
Ukraine, China and South Africa.

that's all for now folks...
i will post another posting regarding on Enrichment and fabrication process.  
See ya in the next posting.

6 comments:

  1. izt possible to get uranium in Malaysia?
    sathis kumar kanesan
    sinkansen_19@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanx for the posting.. now i know the some of the process of mining uranium..
    hope can get more info regarding this matter.
    thank you

    ReplyDelete
  3. salam guys we met again....
    Ive read this topic from other blog but there is some facts that is appealing to me..it is about the countries with the highest producer of uranium....if u said nuclear is the best energy why didn't the USA conquer nor interfere kazakhstan for the uranium instead they conquer petroleum based countries besides other political reason of the invasion...

    As engineers we should minimize the cost of construction n the dependence of raw material from other countries..as there might be some sabotage of raw material...besides there will be a flow of currency towards the countries involve...my stand point is still towards the solar energy...

    “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” Sheikh Zaki Yamani

    the nuclear age will end long b4 the world runs out of uranium...which does the sun glare will run out too in time comes by???
    as what below would say

    “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” Thomas Edison

    I hope too we don't have to wait till uranium run out....

    mohamed nabeel b sidek
    me083582

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Sathis Kumar Kanesan
    It's not possible to get uranium in Malaysia.I've never heard that Malaysia has reserve of uranium resources.However we can import uranium resources from the uranium producer country like Kazakhstan for electricity generation purpose if we operate nuclear power plant in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Mohamed Nabil b Sidek
    Thank u for ur comment towards this posting.US choose to attack petroleum based countries instead of uranium producer contries bcoz fossil fuel is still the primary energy resources worldwide currently. Fossil fuel is crucially important nowadays to generate electricity and to power the vehicle.The usage of fossil fuel is higher than other natural resources and renewable energies.
    The idea of using solar technology is a step forward to increase the usage of green energy. But the efficiency of solar cell is still low around 15% to 20%.Besides the installation of solar energy application is quite high.However the usage of solar energy (PV,CSP) is increasing from day to day.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We are talking about NPP in Malaysia. Where we going to get the uranium from? Is there uranium in Malaysia to mining?

    vaageesan ganeesan
    macha15_swimfaster@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete