Can we reduce the quantity of fuel and hence the amount of nuclear pollutants by using more percentage of U235 for the same power of reactor?
Release of nuclear pollutants to the environment depends on the failure of fuel bundles and further crossing of other in built safety barriers. The production of fission products is proportional to generation of power. Although use of quantity of fuel is less with enriched Uranium, the quantity of fission products will not be anyway less. The effect of these is contained by means of several barriers and protected from release to environment. However enrichment process is complicated and costly one and it produces less quantity of Plutonium as by-product which is a pre-requisite for successful completion of three stage programme. It should also be noted that only U235 undergoes fusion and becomes high level waste 99.7%. U238 is converted into fuel which can be reprocessed and used as fuel for future reactors.
