CANDU Reactors are specifically designed such that they do not require enriched uranium, and can operate entirely on naturally-occurring uranium. A CANDU design is generally used by parties that do not desire uranium enrichment facilities, due to the cost of those facilities.
That said, a CANDU reactor CAN use enriched uranium, they are fully capable of supporting that fuel type.
The uranium used in a CANDU reactor primarily exists as uranium-238, a naturally occurring isotope found in various minerals, with a small percentage of uranium-235. It is extracted from uranium ore through milling and chemical processes to increase the concentration of uranium-235 for use as nuclear fuel in reactors.
The isotope of uranium commonly used in CANDU reactors is uranium-235, which has a half-life of about 703.8 million years. This long half-life allows for sustained nuclear reactions to generate electricity in the reactor.
Fuel for a nuclear reactor is either mined and processed or syntheticaly produced using an operating nuclear reactor. Uranium is the most common nuclear fuel, and the largest supplier of uranium in the world is Canada, which provides well over half of the uranium on the market. Another fuel, plutonium, can be produced in a nuclear reactor.The fuel most commonly found in a nuclear reactor is enriched uranium. Enriched uranium is uranium that has had the U-235 content increased above what it is in the naturally occurring metal. Most uranium that comes out of the ground is U-238, and less than 1% of the uranium is U-235. We have to apply a physical process to increase the percentage of U-235 in the uranium, and we use mechanical separation to obtain uranium with a higher percentage of the U-235. This uranium is said to be enriched, and the process is said to be enrichment.This means that the uranium that is mined and processed to recover the metal will have to go through a costly and technically challenging process to increase the amount of the U-235 isotope that we need.We can generate plutonium by exposing U-238 to neutrons in a critical (operating) nuclear reactor, thus "making" fissionable material for fuel (or weapons). We know that we can make Pu-239 by exposing U-238 to neutron flux. The U-238 will absorb a neutron, then become U-239, which will beta decay to neptunium which will beta decay to plutonium, our fuel.
A typical PWR has fuel assemblies of 200-300 rods each, and a large reactor would have about 150-250 such assemblies with 80-100 tonnes of uranium in all. It produces electric power in the order of 900 to 1500 MW.
Natural uranium has about 0.7 percent U235, this has to be increased to about 4 percent for use in natural water moderated reactors. The obtaining of uranium from mining and refining is described in the document linked below
The uranium used in a CANDU reactor primarily exists as uranium-238, a naturally occurring isotope found in various minerals, with a small percentage of uranium-235. It is extracted from uranium ore through milling and chemical processes to increase the concentration of uranium-235 for use as nuclear fuel in reactors.
This is the Candu type, which was uniquely developed in Canada to use heavy water moderator and natural uranium fuel
The isotope of uranium commonly used in CANDU reactors is uranium-235, which has a half-life of about 703.8 million years. This long half-life allows for sustained nuclear reactions to generate electricity in the reactor.
Uranium must be enriched to increase the concentration of uranium-235 isotope, which is the isotope that undergoes fission in nuclear reactors. Natural uranium primarily consists of uranium-238, which is not as efficient at sustaining a nuclear chain reaction. Enrichment increases the proportion of uranium-235, making the fuel more suitable for use in reactors.
Uranium-235 in combination with Uranium-238, enriched from natural levels of about 0.7% U-235 to about 5% U-235. There are other configurations, but this is the most common.
Candu reactors have traditionally used natural uranium, which contains 0.7 percent U-235, which is the fissile isotope that produces all the nuclear fission energy. Proposals have been made that Candus could use fuel that has been discharged from light water reactors and might still contain about 0.9 percent U-235, or could even use fuel made from depleted uranium (mostly U-238) together with fissile plutonium available from dismantled nuclear weapons, but I don't think such proposals have reached the stage of implementation. For one thing, Canada doesn't have any nuclear weapons, so it would require some fuel manufacture to be set up in the US to make this fuel, or to utilise US spent fuel. There is plenty of this in US storage but no route for using it to make Candu fuel, which is of different dimensions and assembly details. However this might conceivably be done in the future.
Predominantly enriched uranium, but some reactors can use natural uranium.
The only example of nuclear fission in a naturally occurring material is of Uranium 235, which comprises 0.7 percent of natural uranium, the rest being Uranium 238 which is not fissile. To use U235 in a nuclear reactor it is usually enriched to about 4 percent first, though reactors have been designed to use natural uranium. These have to use graphite or heavy water as moderator, as normal water absorbs too many neutrons. During reactor operation some of the U238 absorbs a neutron and becomes Plutonium 239 which is also fissile, so this contributes to a proportion of the reactor power which increases as the fuel is used and the U235 diminishes.
The majority of commercial nuclear power reactors use uranium (natural or enriched) as nuclear fuel.
Most nuclear power plants use enriched uranium as a nuclear fuel. Uranium-235 is the most commonly used isotope for nuclear fission reactions in nuclear power plants, where the uranium atoms split, releasing energy.
No, the atomic bomb and depleted uranium are not the same thing. Nuclear weapons are made with enriched uranium or with plutonium as the fissionable material. Depleted uranium is uranium that is "left over" after natural uranium is put through a process called enrichment to inprove the concentration of the isotope U-235 over that in natural uranium. The enriched uranium with its higher percentage of U-235 is fissionable, and it can be used in nuclear reactors and in nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium is used to make armor-piercing projectiles, and can be put through the neutron flux in an operating reactor to be transformed (transmuted) into plutonium. Use the links below to related questions to learn more.
Yes, the government uses uranium. Uranium is mined, refined and then enriched to provide nuclear fuel for nuclear reactors. Depleted uranium, the uranium "left over" from enrichment, is used in munitions to defeat armor, and in some types of armor. On a related note, enriched uranium is in demand by some sovern states and religeous/political factions to make nuclear weapons, though the "modern" nuclear powers use plutonium as the fissionable element in their nuclear devices. The plutonium is made by "soaking" uranium in the neutron flux of an operating nuclear reactor for a time. This changes (transmutes) some of the uranium to plutonium, which is then recovered and processed.