Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes. The use of the nuclides produced is various. The largest variety is used in research. By tonnage, separating natural uranium into enriched uranium and depleted uranium is the largest application. In the following text, mainly the uranium enrichment is considered. This process is a crucial one in the manufacture of uranium fuel for nuclear power stations, and is also required for the creation of uranium based nuclear weapons. Plutonium-based weapons use plutonium produced in a nuclear reactor, which must be operated in such a way as to produce plutonium already of suitable isotopic mix or grade. While different chemical elements can be purified through chemical processes, isotopes of the same element have nearly identical chemical properties, which makes this type of separation impractical, except for separation of deuterium.
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238, uranium-235, and uranium-234. 235U is the only nuclide existing in nature that is fissile with thermal neutrons.
Piketon is a village in Pike County, Ohio, United States, along the Scioto River. The village is best known for the uranium enrichment plant located there. The population was 2,181 at the 2010 census. Originally called Jefferson, it was the county seat of Pike County 1815–1845, when James Emmitt, a wealthy local entrepreneur, influenced removal of the county seat to Waverly, due to its closer proximity to the then new Ohio & Erie Canal. Piketon is the location of the Pike County Fairgrounds and is served by the Scioto Valley School District.
Uranium hexafluoride (UF6), colloquially known as "hex" in the nuclear industry, is a compound used in the process of enriching uranium, which produces fuel for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
A gas centrifuge is a device that performs isotope separation of gases. A centrifuge relies on the principles of centripetal force accelerating molecules so that particles of different masses are physically separated in a gradient along the radius of a rotating container. A prominent use of gas centrifuges is for the separation of uranium-235 (235U) from uranium-238 (238U). The gas centrifuge was developed to replace the gaseous diffusion method of uranium-235 extraction. High degrees of separation of these isotopes relies on using many individual centrifuges arranged in cascade, that achieve successively higher concentrations. This process yields higher concentrations of uranium-235 while using significantly less energy compared to the gaseous diffusion process.
Gaseous diffusion is a technology used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) through semipermeable membranes. This produces a slight separation between the molecules containing uranium-235 (235U) and uranium-238 (238U). By use of a large cascade of many stages, high separations can be achieved. It was the first process to be developed that was capable of producing enriched uranium in industrially useful quantities, but is nowadays considered obsolete, having been superseded by the more-efficient gas centrifuge process.
Erich Rudolf Bagge was a German scientist. Bagge, a student of Werner Heisenberg for his doctorate and Habilitation, was engaged in German Atomic Energy research and the German nuclear energy project during the Second World War. He worked as an Assistant at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik in Berlin. Bagge, who became associated professor at the University of Hamburg in 1948, was in particular involved in the usage of nuclear power for trading vessels, and he was one of the founders of the Society for the Usage of Nuclear Energy in Ship-Building and Seafare. The first German nuclear vessel, the "NS Otto Hahn", was launched in 1962. A research reactor was installed in Geesthacht near Hamburg at about the same time which has over the years formed into a center for materials research with neutrons.
K-25 was the codename given by the Manhattan Project to the program to produce enriched uranium for atomic bombs using the gaseous diffusion method. Originally the codename for the product, over time it came to refer to the project, the production facility located at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the main gaseous diffusion building, and ultimately the site. When it was built in 1944, the four-story K-25 gaseous diffusion plant was the world's largest building, comprising over 1,640,000 square feet (152,000 m2) of floor space and a volume of 97,500,000 cubic feet (2,760,000 m3).
The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was built as part of the Manhattan Project for the purpose of enriching uranium for the first atomic bombs. It is considered the birthplace of the atomic bomb. In the years after World War II, it has been operated as a manufacturing facility for nuclear weapons components and related defense purposes.
Eurodif, which means European Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment Consortium, is a subsidiary of the French company Orano, which operates a uranium enrichment plant established at the Tricastin Nuclear Power Center in Pierrelatte in Drôme. The nuclear site of Pierrelatte includes many nuclear installations, of which the largest are the Eurodif fuel factory and the Tricastin nuclear power station.
The Megatons to Megawatts Program, successfully completed in December 2013, is the popular name given to the program which is also called the United States-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement. The official name of the program is the "Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States of America Concerning the Disposition of Highly-Enriched Uranium Extracted from Nuclear Weapons", dated February 18, 1993. Under this Agreement, Russia agreed to supply the United States with low-enriched uranium (LEU) obtained from high-enriched uranium (HEU) found to be in excess of Russian defense purposes. The United States agreed to purchase the low-enriched uranium fuel.
Nuclear power in the United States is provided by 95 commercial reactors with a net capacity of 98 gigawatts (GW), 64 pressurized water reactors and 32 boiling water reactors. In 2019 they produced a total of 809.41 terawatt hours of electricity, which accounted for 20% of the nation's total electric energy generation. In 2018, nuclear energy comprised nearly 50 percent of U.S. emission-free generation.
Separation of isotopes by laser excitation (SILEX) is a process for isotope separation that is used to produce enriched uranium using lasers. It was developed in the 1990s, based on earlier technologies.
Kyger Creek Power Plant is a 1.08-gigawatt, 1,086 (MW) coal-fired power station located south of Cheshire, Ohio in Gallia County, Ohio. It is operated by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC).
Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC is a limited liability company owned by Bechtel and Jacobs Engineering Group that served as the primary contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for waste management and environmental remediation activities on DOE-managed federal government properties in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio that previously produced enriched uranium, including weapons-grade uranium, for the United States Atomic Energy program and U.S. nuclear weapons program. The plant is in shutdown status and is in preparation for decontamination and decommissioning (D&D), with some facilities overseen by the United States Enrichment Corporation, a subsidiary of USEC Incorporated, a publicly traded corporation. The D&D work on the older facilities to prepare the site for future use is expected to continue through 2024 and is being conducted by Fluor-B&W Portsmouth LLC.
The three Oak Ridge gatehouses, also known as "checking stations", "guard houses", or "guard shacks", are security checkpoints in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built c. 1948-1949 to control access to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) production and research facilities in Oak Ridge. These are individually listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as Bear Creek Road Checking Station, Bethel Valley Road Checking Station and Oak Ridge Turnpike Checking Station.
The Zippe-type centrifuge is a gas centrifuge designed to enrich the rare fissile isotope uranium-235 (235U) from the mixture of isotopes found in naturally occurring uranium compounds. The isotopic separation is based on the slight difference in mass of the isotopes. The Zippe design was originally developed in the Soviet Union by a team led by 60 Austrian and German scientists and engineers captured after World War II, working in detention. In the West the type is known by the name of the man who recreated the technology after his return to the West in 1956, based on his recollection of his work in the Soviet program, Gernot Zippe. To the extent that it might be referred to in Soviet/Russian usage by any one person's name, it was known as a Kamenev centrifuge
The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) is a facility located in McCracken County, Kentucky, near Paducah, Kentucky that produced enriched uranium 1952–2013. It is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The PGDP was the only operating uranium enrichment facility in the United States in the period 2001–2010. The Paducah plant produced low-enriched uranium, originally as feedstock for military reactors, weapons and later for nuclear power fuel.
The nuclear energy policy of the United States developed within two main periods, from 1954–1992 and 2005–2010. The first period saw the ongoing building of nuclear power plants, the enactment of numerous pieces of legislation such as the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, and the implementation of countless policies which have guided the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy in the regulation and growth of nuclear energy companies. This includes, but is not limited to, regulations of nuclear facilities, waste storage, decommissioning of weapons-grade materials, uranium mining, and funding for nuclear companies, along with an increase in power plant building. Both legislation and bureaucratic regulations of nuclear energy in the United States have been shaped by scientific research, private industries' wishes, and public opinion, which has shifted over time and as a result of different nuclear disasters.
