How comes there is nuclear fuel waste when uranium stays radioactive for hundreds of years shouldn’t we be able to use the same fuel rod until 2122+?
In: 5
We split U-235 to get heat.
There is less than 5% U-235 in the fuel.
When we split enough of the fuel, it can’t maintain full power. This is when we refuel the reactor. When we pull the fuel out, it has about 0.7% U-235, about 0.7% Pu-239 (which is made in the reactor) about 93% U-238 which is not fissile, and the rest is waste.
The U and Pu are essentially harmless from a radiation perspective. The waste products cannot be used to make energy and that is the stuff that’s super hazardous.
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