|
DU and NDU
Depleted Uranium (DU)
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process.
Presently there is no acceptable solution for safe disposal of radioactive waste.
The laws and precautions governing its use have largely been discarded since large-scale military use made them impractical.
Depleted uranium is also now being made available to be recycled as an element going into manufacturing of consumer or industrial products.
The enrichment process also creates small quantities of the man-made isotopes U236 and plutonium (Pu239).
These isotopes are included in the “depleted” uranium mass as it is too expensive to extract them.
For every gram of enriched uranium that is produced there are 7 grams of depleted uranium.
This results in huge stockpiles of radioactive waste.
It is estimated that there is over one million tons of DU stockpiled in the U.S.
The quantities of plutonium in these stockpiles are a well-kept secret.
It is routinely measured but not publicly reported.
Isotope Composition, Chemical Half-lives and Isotope Ratios in Natural and Depleted Uranium
|
ISOTOPE
|
NATURAL
|
DEPLETED
|
HALF-LIFE
|
|
U-238
|
99.2749%
|
99.7947%
|
4.49 billion years
|
|
U-235
|
0.7196%
|
0.2015%
|
710 million years
|
|
U-234
|
0.0055%
|
0.0008%
|
248,000 years
|
Non-Depleted Uranium (NDU)
Non-depleted uranium is uranium with a U238/U235 isotopic ratio comparable to natural uranium but having quantities of U236 and presumably plutonium.
U236 is a man-made element not found in nature.
It's presence suggests that the uranium has been through a reactor or has been mixed with reactor by-products.
While some studies have shown that U236 may be produced in nature by natural reactors, the quantity of U236 is 10,000 times less than the amount UMRC is measuring in NDU.
|
