What is the uranium enrichment process?
For the types of nuclear power plants used in the United States, uranium needs to be enriched to produce power. Natural uranium primarily contains two isotopes, U-238 (99.3 percent) and U-235 (0.7 percent). The concentration of U-235, the fissionable isotope in uranium, needs to be increased to 3 to 5 percent for practical use as a nuclear fuel. This enrichment can be performed in several ways — gaseous diffusion and gas centrifuges are the principal methods. In gaseous diffusion, uranium is converted into a gaseous form, uranium hexafluoride (UF6), and passed through many stages of barriers that separate the uranium isotopes. In the United States, gaseous diffusion plants have operated in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Paducah, Kentucky; and Piketon, Ohio. Currently, the only operating enrichment plant in the United States is the plant in Paducah, Kentucky. Another way to enrich uranium is by using gas centrifuges. Gas centrifuges spin UF6 gas at high speeds creating a centrifugal force that
