uranium reactor

Diesel-fueled generators can supply power for up to 10 days, but a prolonged outage could be dangerous, as power is needed to pump cooling water into the plant’s uranium reactor cores and pools holding spent fuel.

An airlift 10 years in the making occurred in August, when a highly enriched uranium reactor was flown out of Ghana and replaced with a more efficient core, the product of the first cooperation between U.S. and Chinese nuclear researchers in 20 years.

When a uranium reactor overheats and the fuel rods can’t contain the chain reaction, as happened at Fukushima, the crisis continues.

The North has also built a uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon that could produce highly enriched uranium for weapons or low-enriched uranium reactor fuel that could be irradiated for plutonium production.

The Uranium Reactor The typical nuclear-fuel cycle starts with refined uranium ore, which is mostly U238 but contains 3% to 5% U235.