Talk:Enriched uranium

A summary of this article appears in Uranium.

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I'm making an artical stub for the United States Enrichment Corpoation ( USEC ) that will link here.

Quinobi 20:14, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

SWU (separative work unit)

I am moving this topic to Isotope separation where I think it will make a bit more sense when one sees it in context. DV8 2XL 02:35, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Na, I decided not to and expanded it here. DV8 2XL 04:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How can a material like "depleted" uranium, with same number of nucleons and all the same composition as U-238, of course still being U-238, suddenly become less radioactive whether or not U-235 has been extracted or enriched? This makes no sense because if the Uranium were to lose its unstable properties it would move down the decay chain to something else; what you have described is physically impossible. U-238 is U-238; probably you are following some pro-military mandate to claim uranium is something different than uranium. Don't be fooled into thinking depleted uranium is in any way depleted; because it's still uranium.

The term depleted uranium means the stock has been depleated of all or most of its inventory of U-235. The term was not used in any other matter. DV8 2XL 00:39, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

- Natural uranium is composed of U-238, U-235 and U-234. Depleted uranium has most of the U-235 and U-234 removed. Because of their shorter half lives, both of these are more radioactive than U-238. Even though U-234 is only 0.006% of natural uranium, its radioactivity is the same as the much larger amount of U-238. pstudier 17:41, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Weapons from enriched uranium

I have restored my recent edits about weapons, which were rudely removed with the edit summary "nonsence."

There are no sourced statements in this entire article, so faulting my edits on that basis is absurd.

However, if one needs a primer, one needs to search no further than wikiarticle critical mass. Here we learn that implosion and beryllium reflectors can allow assembly of a supercritical mass from an amount of material that would be subcritical as a bare sphere.

As for dirty bombs from 20% or less enriched uranium, U-235 having a 700 million year half-life, I guess you could make a dirt bomb from it. It just wouldn't kill anyone. You could also stuff a wad of paper into a straw and spit it at a tank, and call it an anti-tank weapon. Give Peace A Chance 17:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That just doesn't belong in this article. See your discussion page. --DV8 2XL 17:53, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then make your freakin edit summary state that you think it doesn't belong, not that it is "nonsence." Give Peace A Chance 18:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You will still have to provide a reference - see the section at the bottom of the article for the citations for the rest of the topic. I will give you a few hours before removing your edits - but they will be removed, if not by me then the others who watch this page if you don't provide refs.--DV8 2XL 18:44, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. The dirty bomb statements don't belong here ether, since it only applies to used fuel, not the enrichment process. --DV8 2XL 18:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Countries

Would be nice if someone could add a reference about which countries uses this technology. thks

Dead Link

It appears that the "Uranium enrichment (PDF, 651 KB)" link is dead. Can someone fix or remove this? ~Anon

LEU caption wrong, surely?

I don't believe the caption on the "Low-enriched uranium powder" photo is correct. Uranium oxide is that nice yellow colour, but LEU is a metal; that's just a bucket of yellowcake. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:46, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed this. I also changed another photo caption from 'highly enriched uranium' to 'uranium metal. There is no visual difference in uranium metal regardless of isotopic composition. I didn't go any further, 'Enriched uranium' is not the place to go into chemical processing steps from oxide to metal. Murray Baker. --210.84.59.171 13:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but the HEU picture actually is of an HEU billet, so it is worth pointing that out in the HEU, even if it looks the same as regular uranium metal. Better to give more information than less. --Fastfission 13:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect

"Enrichment of Uranium should redirect to this page. N i g h t F a l c o n 9 0 9 0 9' ^{T a l k} 18:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I suggest that a separate article is needed on "Enrichment of uranium", starting with content that is currently in this article. --orlady 15:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]