• Question: Do you know how long it takes to get U3O8/urania (yellowcake).

    Asked by to Linda on 16 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Linda Cremonesi

      Linda Cremonesi answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      That’s a difficult question! I have to admit I had to google it to find out a bit more about it.

      So yellow cake is the first stage to enrinch uranium. This is because the uranium that is extracted in mines is not all good for nuclear fission, but only a part of this is, so we need to “enrich” it to be ready to use (this only means that the percentage of uranium good for fission goes from <1% to ~5% for nuclear plants and higher for weapons).

      Yellow cake is the result of the first stage of enrichment and it looks like a yellow/browinish powder.

      I have to admit that I tried to google this a bit more to understand how long it takes to produce yellow cake, but didn't find any answer online, even because this depends a lot on the technique used…

      I apologise if my answer was not satisfying :/

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