Page 4 - Uranium Fuel News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Infrastructure, the risk is not really a mushroom cloud. there's not a real risk here of a nuclear explosion like you get with a nuclear bomb. a mushroom cloud and all that. the risk here is the release of radioactivity into the environment. and the important issue is how much radioactivity we are talking about. tepco now clarifies that there are just under 1,500 fuel rod assemblies in all the reactors at daiichi. fuel rods are what hold the uranium fuel that releases radioactive gunk into the atmosphere if those fuel rods are damaged. each fuel rod assembly holds about 380 pounds of uranium. ...

Assuming he's referring to the fuel rods, can't be for sure, the fuel rods in the fuel pool. we believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool, that radiation levels are extremely high. so this is something we spoke about yesterday, that already used fuel rods, so that -- i mean, how serious is that? >> that's very serious. chairman jaczko has said this, this means that the spent fuel in unit four has been exposed, has been -- the zirconium which is the metal cladding around the uranium fuel has gotten so hot that it has been interacting with...

Controlled reaction. instead of blowing up, the reaction creates heat. and the heat is what we are after because that's what these reactors use to make a lot of electricity. to make that nuclear reaction that makes that heat, those uranium pellets are the fuel. and just like any fuel, it gets used up eventually. your 12 foot long fuel rod, that lasts about six years in a reactor. with a reactor in effect turned on, the fission process over about six years uses that uranium fuel up. it becomes something they call spent fuel. and when they call it spent fuel, what they mean is that it is degrade...

Used up eventually. your 12 foot long fuel rod full of the uranium pellets lasts about six years in a reactor, with the reactor turned on, the fission process over about six years uses that uranium fuel up. it becomes something they call spent fuel. and when they call it spent fuel, what they mean is that it is degraded enough that even though it is still wicked radioactive, it is no longer efficient for doing what nuclear power plants are supposed to do, which is generating a lot of heat, boiling a lot of water, making steam that spins turbines that make electricity. so here's the problem. af...

With the reactor turned on, the fission process over about six years uses that uranium fuel up. it becomes something they call spent fuel. and when they call it spent fuel, what they mean is that it is degraded enough that even though it is still wicked radioactive, it is no longer efficient for doing what nuclear power plants are supposed to do, which is generating a lot of heat, boiling a bunch of water, making a bunch of steam that spins turbines that make electricity. so here's the problem. after you've gotten your good six years out of uranium pellet filled fuel rods, what do you do with ...