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| Fig 1: Fuel Reprocessing Cycle The figure above shows the cycle that a spent fuel would go through. The composition of a spent fuel would be as figure 2 below. As you can see, only 3 % of the spent fuel is fission products which are not retrievable. Most of it could be recycled but it depends on the owner of the nuclear power plant. 1% of the spent fuel is plutonium which could be sent straight to the fuel fabrication centre and the 96% of Uranium would be spent to enrichment plant and then the process continues.  |
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Spent Fuel Management
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A clear explanation on spent fuel cycle.Its clearly shows the cyle needs for spent fuel.But,at some areas,normal people will not understand the process.Maybe it can be simplified more by giving the meaning of some scientific
ReplyDeletewords there..:)
Kamariah bt Kamaruddin
ME082753
kasyahkhairuddin@yahoo.com
From the diagram itself,we can see that the process of NPP which from starting to the end are being organised systematically..I agree with kasyah that maybe you could add some description about certain process..TQ
ReplyDeletearif afifi bin ahmad
me084865
megatron_183@yahoo.com
I also agree with kamariah... it's a clear explanation on spent fuel cycle.. The 1st diagram easily to understand. tq
ReplyDeletemuhammad fikri bin baharudin
fiq.bahar@gmail.com
yeah right, easy to understand about the fuel reprocessing cycle. uranium will be very important to make this happen because 96% of them is used. thanks for the information. :)
ReplyDeleteMOHD IZHAN BAZLI BIN BASIR
CE082720
izhanbazli@gmail.com
Salam...
ReplyDeleteNice explanation on spent fuel cycle. Certainly there many advantages of using this kind of energy. Nuclear power is the only large-scale energy-producing technology which takes full responsibility for all its wastes and fully costs this into the product. The amount of radioactive wastes is very small relative to wastes produced by fossil fuel electricity generation.
Khairul Amirin Bin Amir Hussain
CE080110
deafening_silence84@yahoo.com
a very good article on the nuclear waste material. i didnt know that 97% of the waste can be reused after certain enrichment process. however, this increases the doubts of the people regarding the risks of mishaps happening as there are various process involving transportation.
ReplyDeletejoel bharath
me083556
sect6
Does these percentages apply for all types of NPPs? or is it taken from a specific type?
ReplyDeleteYANG GUO XIAN
ME083672
iainygx@hotmail.com
salam n hye..
ReplyDeletequite confusing.. can you explain more detail on where the 3% of the spent fuel that is fission products which are not retrievable go? TQ. ^_^
HAZIM BIN SHARUDIN
ME083548
sena_90@yahoo.com.my
once again i`m impressed by nuclear. I think nuclear will be the most perfect energy for us. Just look at the diagram, only 3% is not retrievable??? It was very awesome.
ReplyDeleteAmirul Hafez Bin Darobi
Me084047
apeh90@yahoo.com
Wow... I didn't know that uranium is so recycle-able... 96% is a lot. Samo the price of uranium is not expensive. As I have said before, there is no reason to reject nuclear energy in Malaysia. As long as we take good care of the NPP and the waste, it would not be much of a problem...
ReplyDeleteAng Jit Yong (ME083530)
aplox3@hotmail.com
Cool, didn't know Uranium was so versatile. Uranium that could be re-cycled and fuel that can be used for over 5000 years, it virtually cannot be finished using. Best fuel source we have ever discovered.
ReplyDeleteJan Siong Lim
ME083552
jansionglim@hotmail.com
salam n hai..
ReplyDeletethank for nice article.now i really understand on spent fuel cycle process..but how about da cost to carry out this process?thus it reasonable?tq.
wan khairi hakimi bin wan abdul aziz
wankhairi_90@yahoo.com
ce083464
Good article.
ReplyDeleteWell,it seems like NPP consume less fuel during the process.Almost 100% uranium can be reused again,its incredible!!
name: JAFFREEN BIN JAAFAR
emel:jeff_kyo90@yahoo.com
what do you mean by conditioned waste? do you mean that the harmfull waste is condition and than disposed? can i get a better explanation on this 3% waste.its good to hear that 97% is recycleble.but wat do you mean it depends on the owner.is that because it is expensive to recycle?
ReplyDeleteHarsukhvir singh godrei
me083547
sukh_x@hotmail.com
is it true that after a few decades the nuclear wastes that was burried can be used again? if this is true, we can retrive back our wastes and reduce future imports..
ReplyDeleteMuhamad Rifdy Bin Samsudin
CE083444
ed_dy12@hotmail.com
The spent fuel management is very organized. They have taken every step to make sure that the nuclear power plant will work effectively. If we can run effectively this kind of spent fuel management, we should have nuclear power plant in our country.
ReplyDeleteSyarifah Nur Hamizah Bt Syed Kasim
ME083650
ija_rc@yahoo.com
A very informative article as each process is well detailed and its amazing that uranium is non exhaustive.
ReplyDeleteTevan Nair
ME083630
dr.spiceinlife@yahoo.com
it is more easier if we can imaging the picture and this post really help. from the picture and explanation we can understand the process from the beginning to the end. we can notice that the process is one cycle which repeat again and again. from 100% only 3% of waste produced,which teach us that most of the uranium is completely use to this NPP. the waste is not easily throw away,it have to be dispose as the figure 1. so it means less harm to the environment which this can be categorized as green source. instead the process of other source it much different from this which contains side effect which can disturb our environment. but still for certain people,they said picture can lie.hence we need to be educated about this NPP so that everyone can understand what are they for and the benefits for us and our future generation.
ReplyDeleteAhmad Adam Bin Mohd Rozain
Me086000
aa_bencho@hotmail.com
I like what Sukh has brought up in this discussion, that the 3% waste is depending on the operator, how are they going to hanlde them?
ReplyDeleteIf it's related to the cost then in the future there might be operators who would like to save money by not processing them. It would be dangerous to the environment. Thanks.
Zulfadhli Bin Zahudin
CE083466
darhein_90@hotmail.com
is this graph applied to all the NPP or just some that have similar features?? can you explain more in detail bout how the recycling process work for the recyclable products.
ReplyDeleteJUSTIN PETER JOSEPH
ME083557
terbalik_just23@hotmail.com
salam..from this article, i know that the nuclear process in the NPP is very efficient and systematically..but i just want know more detail about this..can you explain more about this article..
ReplyDeleteMOHAMAD ASHIFF BIN KAMALUDIN (ME083578)
ars_shiffy@yahoo.com
Nice one. Informative article. :)
ReplyDeleteNurul Najiah binti Hashim
ME083972
nurul.najiah@yahoo.com
Hi people..... Kamariah and Arif, I assume you guys didn't understand the terms that were used in the diagram. First of all, you need to know about uranium and plutonium. Natural Uranium has only about 0.72% of Uranium-235, an isotope which can sustain fission chain reaction . So, to make the amount of Uranium-235 in the fuel to be higher a process is done and that is what we call as "enrichment". To explain the process, first the fuel is produced in the enrichment plant and sent to the fuel fabrication plant and it will be sent out to the power plant. The spent fuel would have a composition of 96% Uranium, 1% of Plutonium which is highly radioactive and 3% of fission products. This fission product can't be used back to generate heat but the Uranium and Plutonium can be used. The Uranium has to be enriched again and the Plutonium doesn't need it. From the figure you could see that Plutonium would be sent straight to the plant and Uranium goes under enrichment process again. I hope this explanation is good enough.
ReplyDeleteAs asked by Justin and Yang, the spent fuel composition would differ only for the heavy water reactor or better known as CANDU reactors. Since they use heavy water as their moderator, they don't need enriched fuel for the fission process to happen.
ReplyDeleteKhairi and Joel, most of the process if you could see from the explanation above this, is something that happens even if the waste is not recycled. So the cost is already there and this doesn't mean there is extra cost. About the risk and safety, you should see our post on Nuclear Waste Management. The amount of protection given to the canisters are high. It is safe.
Rifdy, the fission products in the spent fuel are highly radioactive which means it has quite less half life. So, after few decades of it being underground the fission products would be totally extincted. Which means it is no more radioactive and the good part is we know how many years and we know where we buried them. This means we can use it again later.
ReplyDeleteSukhvir & Zulfadly,
As I've explained in the above comment, the spent fuel goes under certain process. There will be a process to separate them and the fission products which are the waste are considered conditioned. As for my statement about the owner decision, on the early ages of nuclear which is about 50 years ago, the spent fuel were considered radioactive and dangerous and they would be disposed as in buried underground. Lately, people started looking at the composition of the spent fuel which is still high in Uranium and Plutonium which could be used back and reducing their cost of mining and things like that. So thats when the reprocessing cycle was introduced. Some power producers (owner)are still stereotyped about the safety and choose to bury the waste. This is what I mean by it depends on the owner. Hope this explains it. Thanks