The process by which uranium ore is mined, processed, enriched, used, possibly reprocessed and disposed of is known as the nuclear fuel cycle.

Because the light water reactors would require enriched uranium to be imported from outside North Korea, the amount of reactor fuel and waste could be more easily tracked, making it more difficult to divert nuclear waste to be reprocessed into plutonium.

There is a project in progress to develop pebbles and reactors that use MOX fuel, that mixes uranium with plutonium from either reprocessed fuel rods or decommissioned nuclear weapons.

MOX fuel contains plutonium blended with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium.

===== New methods being considered for future use ===== The PUREX process can be modified to make a UREX ( URanium EXtraction ) process which could be used to save space inside high level nuclear waste disposal sites, such as Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, by removing the uranium which makes up the vast majority of the mass and volume of used fuel and recycling it as reprocessed uranium.

Magnox spent fuel is not designed for long-term storage as both the casing and uranium metal core react with water, it is designed to be reprocessed within a few years of removal from a reactor.

This fuel contains quantities of U-236 and other contaminants because it was made from reprocessed fuel from weapons program reactors and therefore has slightly different characteristics when used in a reactor as compared to fresh uranium fuel.

CNC officers also operate the armament on board the ships of the company Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited, which specialise in transporting spent nuclear fuel and reprocessed uranium on behalf of the British Nuclear Fuels organisation.

After the actinides ( reprocessed uranium, plutonium, and minor actinides ) are recycled, the remaining radioactive waste isotopes are fission products, with half-life of 90 years ( Sm-151 ) or less or 211, 100 years ( Tc-99 ) and more ; plus any activation products from the non-fuel reactor components.

The fertile material in fast reactor fuel can be depleted uranium ( mostly U-238 ), natural uranium, or reprocessed uranium from spent fuel from traditional light water reactors, and even include nonfissile isotopes of plutonium and minor actinide isotopes.

The reactor can use 5 % enriched uranium oxide fuel, reprocessed uranium fuel and 100 % mixed uranium plutonium oxide fuel.

Spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors is reprocessed to separate the 96 % uranium and the 1 % plutonium, which can be reused in mixed oxide fuel, from the 3 % radioactive wastes, which are treated and stored at the plant.

The increased percentage of U-234 in enriched natural uranium is acceptable in current nuclear reactors, but ( re-enriched ) reprocessed uranium might contain even higher fractions of U-234, which is undesirable.

To become steel, it must be melted and reprocessed to reduce the carbon to the correct amount, at which point other elements can be added.

The materials from which the items are made can be reprocessed into new products.

In addition the Sellafield site which, amongst other activities, reprocessed spent Magnox fuel in its B205 plant, has an estimated decommissioning cost of £ 31. 5 billion.

The spent nuclear fuel has been reprocessed with an estimated yield of about 24 to 42 kg of plutonium metal, some of which was used for the nuclear weapons involved in the 2006 and 2009 North Korean nuclear tests.

In the 1960s, it was common practice to generate stereo versions of music from monophonic master tapes, which were normally marked " electronically reprocessed " or " electronically enhanced " stereo on track listings.

It is the case that for high burnup used fuel that the concentrations of the higher plutonium isotopes will be higher than the low burnup fuel which is reprocessed to obtain weapons grade plutonium.

COVRA ( Centrale Organisatie Voor Radioactief Afval ) is a Dutch nuclear waste processing and storage company in Vlissingen ,, which stores the waste produced in the Borssele nuclear power plant after it is reprocessed by Areva NC in La Hague, Manche, Basse-Normandie, France.

The 104 U. S. commercial reactors currently operating will produce this quantity of spent fuel by 2014, assuming that the spent fuel rods are not reprocessed.

If spent fuel is not reprocessed, the fuel cycle is referred to as an open fuel cycle ( or a once-through fuel cycle ); if the spent fuel is reprocessed, it is referred to as a closed fuel cycle.

It was a former manufacturer and transporter of nuclear fuel ( notably MOX ), ran reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent fuel ( mainly at Sellafield ), and decommissioned nuclear plants and other similar facilities.

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, is a U. S. plan to form an international partnership to see spent nuclear fuel reprocessed in a way that renders the plutonium in it usable for nuclear fuel but not for nuclear weapons.

In the United States, this used fuel is stored, while in countries such as Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and India, the fuel is reprocessed to remove the fission products, and the fuel can then be re-used.

EBR-II was later modified to test other reactor designs, including a fast-neutron reactor and, in 1982, the Integral Fast Reactor concept — a revolutionary design that reprocessed its own fuel, reduced its atomic waste and withstood safety tests of the same failures that triggered the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters.

With the commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors.

Trace transuranics ( another indicator of the use of reprocessed material ) have been reported to be present in some US tank armour.

However, variation in acceptance is reflected in the resale value of the material once it is reprocessed.

It consists of material similar to terrestrial basalts or plutonic rocks and has been differentiated and reprocessed to a lesser or greater degree due to melting and recrystallization on or within meteorite parent bodies .< ref name =" Sahijpal2007 "> As a result, achondrites have distinct textures and mineralogies indicative of igneous processes.

Intermediate products such as gasoils can even be reprocessed to break a heavy, long-chained oil into a lighter short-chained one, by various forms of cracking such as fluid catalytic cracking, thermal cracking, and hydrocracking.

Many DBMSs implement durability by writing transactions into a transaction log that can be reprocessed to recreate the system state right before any later failure.

Woodchips can also be reprocessed into playground woodchip to be used as a impact-attenuating playground surfacing.

Prior to postcure, parts can be reground and reprocessed.

The residue can be reprocessed for more dripping and strained through a cheesecloth lined sieve as an ingredient for a fine beef stock.

" The end of the building ’ s useful life generates a stream of used materials that can be reprocessed for new construction.

Sometimes the texts have to be reprocessed by the user.

Materials to be recycled are either brought to a collection center or picked up from the curbside, then sorted, cleaned, and reprocessed into new materials bound for manufacturing.

Incomplete and often non-functioning cars soon filled the factory lot, the vehicles then had to be reprocessed and repaired by a team assigned to this task by DeLorean.

As mining techniques and the price of minerals improve, it is not unusual for tailings to be reprocessed using new methods, or more thoroughly with old methods, to recover additional minerals.

At first glance the rhodium might be adding to the resource value of reprocessed fission waste, but the cost of the separation of the rhodium from the other metals needs to be considered.

Shutting down and starting up many continuous processes typically results in off quality product that must be reprocessed or disposed of.