bauxite bauxite bauxite, page-17

Hi St Andrew,

In your comm. there is a sentence that's suss.

"Nuclear power and geothermal power use the same source of fuel – enriched uranium"

This is liable to mislead people as it mixes up two concepts about the term "enriched"

Geothermal power relies on geochemical enrichment of radioactive elements. The most abundant radioactive elements in Nature are uranium, thorium and potassium. Where you get higher concentrations of these elements (at depth), you will get a general heating of the rocks in which they occur. Over many millions of years, such zones can get to very high temperatures and provide heat for geothermal power stations.

Nuclear power relies on the fissioning (breaking apart) of uranium nuclei. Of the commonly occuring elements, only only uranium fissions easily. And only one isotope of uranium fissions easily. So to build a reactor, we take some common uranium and enrich the isotope that fissions easily (U-235)and use it to make reactor fuel rods.

In Nature, you never find isotopically enriched U-235. No uranium deposits anywhere in the world are naturally isotopically enriched in U-235 (although there is rare case in Africa where a uranium deposit is de-riched in U-235!)