My uninitiated mind would think that it would be the other way around.
I was watching a video about nuclear power. The guy being interviewed was wearing safety glasses and nitrile gloves while holding a uranium fuel pellet. Then the camera pans to a screen showing the robot handling spent fuel in the bottom of a 40-foot deep pool of heavy water. The pool is in a room behind a big red door with every “do not enter” warning imaginable. I would think the fuel would be less radioactive coming out than going in.
In: Chemistry
2 things. First, fresh uranium decays very slowly, so it’s less dangerous over short periods of time. Second, uranium decays via alpha decay, which means it emits alpha particles (aka helium nuclei). These are big and slow and get blocked by just about anything. So a thin latex glove is enough to block the alpha particles from getting to your skin.
As that fuel is in the reactor undergoing fission, those uranium atoms are being turned into atoms of other radioactive isotopes, which are removed from the reactor as spent fuel. These isotopes in the spent fuel are much more radioactive than uranium, and also emit different kinds of radiation that can pass straight through many materials, and can only be blocked by thick layers of stuff like concrete, steel, or water. So if you were handing spent fuel, you’d be handling material that’s giving you a lot more radiation and a different type of radiation that’s more dangerous to you.
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