Publication Laka-library:
The mythology and messy reality of nuclear fuel reprocessing (2010)
| Author | Arjun Makhijani, IEER |
 | - |
| Date | April 2010 |
| Classification | 3.01.5.23/07 (UNITED STATES - REPROCESSING) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
AA. Introduction Reprocessing is a technology for separating fissile materials – materials that can sustain a chain reaction (6) – from a more complex mixture created in a nuclear reactor so that they can be used either in nuclear weapons or in nuclear power reactors. It was initially developed during the World War II Manhattan Project for obtaining the plutonium-239 to make the bomb that was used on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. This report deals with proposals to use reprocessing as a technology to manage nuclear spent fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors and potentially also to use some of the recovered materials, including plutonium-239, as fuel. There is only one naturally-occurring fissile material – uranium-235.7 It is only about 0.7 percent of natural uranium by weight, which also contains two other uranium isotopes: uranium-238 (just under 99.3 percent) and a trace of uranium-234 (about fifty parts per million). Neither uranium-234 nor uranium-238 is fissile. So,in effect, only about 0.7 percent of natural uranium
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