After-Pop! Stripping Down Nuclear Fuels from Ep1
Welcome to the Ep.1 After-pop!
Nuclear Fuels Breakdown: Uranium Oxide, Uranium Silicide, Uranium Mononitride, and HALEU
In this quick follow-up episode, we dive deeper into the world of nuclear fuels. Dr. Jennifer Watkins breaks down the key materials used in advanced nuclear reactors, including:
- Uranium Oxide (UO₂): The most common nuclear fuel, typically used in light water reactors.
- Uranium Silicide (U₃Si₂): A high-density fuel offering improved performance in reactors.
- Uranium Mononitride (UN): A promising fuel for fast reactors with superior thermal conductivity.
- HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium): A next-generation fuel with higher enrichment, key to enabling advanced reactor technologies.
Learn more about Dr. Watkins fuel research at INL here: https://inl.gov/feature-story/u-s-researchers-fabricate-commercial-grade-uranium-dioxide-haleu-fuel/
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Danielle Allen: Hello, and welcome to The After-Pop. It is a quick breakdown of reactor fuels from episode one, with Dr. Watkins. So today we're going to be diving into some pretty amazing nuclear reactor fuels, and we'll keep it mostly simple. We're going to talk about how different fuels like uranium oxide, uranium, silicide, and uranium nitride power these reactors. And by the end, you'll feel like a mini nuclear reactor expert.
what is nuclear fuel? So let's start with the basics. Imagine your car runs on gasoline, right? Well, nuclear reactors run on uranium. It's a special type of metal that comes from the earth. That's it it's just a metal. So when the uranium atom split apart, they can release a ton of energy. And that energy is used to make electricity for our homes and businesses. I remember the part where Dr.
Walkin says nuclear reactors are just giant teakettles? They boil the water to create steam. The steam turns a big turbine, and then that turbine creates energy. So first up, we have uranium oxide the every day fuel. think of this as the trusty old fuel that most nuclear reactors use. Uranium oxide looks a little bit like black pellets. about the size of a pencil eraser. these pellets are packed inside long metal tubes that make up the fuel rods. Uranium oxide is super reliable, but it does have some limits.
So it doesn't carry as much uranium in each pellet. And it's also not great at handling heat, which means reactors have to be designed carefully to keep them from getting too hot. So when you're thinking about a reactor meltdown, you're thinking about the reactor getting too hot.
Now we're going to slip on over to the fancy newcomer. This is uranium silicide This one is the upgrade. it's a mix of uranium and Silicon. Silicon is literally within everything that we use, especially electronic wise, but here we're using it.
realistically within uranium silicide to pack More uranium into the same pellet size. So we're making the pellet denser more energy dense. That means that it can create more energy without taking up extra space.
[00:02:30] Yeti Stereo Microphone-4: Uranium silicide also handles heat better than uranium oxide. Which is a big deal. When things get really hot in reactor, you don't want the fuel to crack or break. So this makes uranium silicide, a strong candidate for future reactors and scientists are testing it in commercial reactors right now So that's the research that Dr.
Watkins was talking about to see how well it works under heat.
Finally, we have uranium mononitride, let's talk about this superhero of nuclear fuels, which is uranium mononitride this one is super dense, meaning it holds even more uranium than uranium. Silicide. It also moves heat like a pro, which keeps the reactor running smoothly.
But here's the catch it's a little bit fussy. Uranium mononitride does not like air or water. And guess what? Most nuclear reactors use water to cool things down. Scientists are working on a way to protect this fuel so it can be used effectively.
[00:03:38] Yeti Stereo Microphone-4: Okay . So we're going to talk about HALEU. HALEU stands for high essay, low enriched uranium sounds fancy, but here's what that means. Regular uranium from the ground has only a tiny bit, just 0.7% of the stuff we need to make energy, which is called U 235 or Uranium 235. For most reactors, we enrich it to about 5%.
HALEU is uranium. That's enriched between 5 and 20%. This makes it perfect for newer, smaller reactors that need extra power in a tiny space. It's essentially like giving them supercharged fuel to get more bang for their buck
[00:04:22] Yeti Stereo Microphone-8: Danielle. Why does all this matter? Why should I care about nuclear reactor fuel? And if it's safer and if it is a meltdown and if it reacts water and that level. So. All of these fuels are a part of making nuclear power, safe and more efficient. They help us create energy that is clean and reliable.
This means that you're having power generated within your own backyard. That is not giving off exhaust as in smoke pollutants into the air. And wiHALEUlou, we can design even smaller reactors for places that need more power, but don't have much space. So in urban areas in cities, on corporate campuses.
[00:05:09] Danielle Allen: For the after pop summary. You've got one uranium oxide. It's the classic fuel. Two. Uranium silicide. It's the fancy upgrade. Think Silicon Valley. And three uranium mononitride. It's the future superhero, but it does have a kryptonite. Water. Add in HALEU and you've got a recipe for something exciting that's happening in the nuclear reactor space for smaller, safer, more powerful reactors. Nuclear fuel might sound complicated, but at the end of the day, it's just science, helping us live better lives.
Thank you for listening to the after pop a quick breakdown of nuclear reactor fuels from episode one. And thank you for listening to Naked Nuclear stripping down the bulk of the layers of nuclear energy and science. So that you can understand what the heck is going on. I'm your host, Danielle Allen, and I'll see you next time.
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