bauxite bauxite bauxite, page-19

Hi Standrew,

In that case, Dr Sandra McLaren is wrong, or, much more likely, has been misreported.

I looked up the link that you gave and the contentious sentence (my copy & paste) is as follows:-
"She says that nuclear power and geothermal power use the same source of fuel – enriched uranium."

The operative words are "She says ...". Clearly we are reading a report of what she is alleged to have said rather than a copy of what she actually said. A classic case of misreporting by some earnest (but incompetent) journalist I reckon and, I fear, may mislead our fellow HCers.

Whatever the cause of the error, enriched uranium (geochemical) means a geological occurence of uranium enrichment (perhaps a mineral such as uraninite or carnotite)in a rock sequence and enriched uranium (nuclear fuel) means the isotopic enrichment of uranium (an expensive, man-made process).

[Normal natural uranium contains 99.3% U-238 which is no good for nuclear reactors and 0.7% U-235 which is the atom that fissions and enables nuclear reactors to heat water and thereby produce power. To increase the efficiency of the reactor, we must enrich the fuel in the U-235 isotope. We do this by essentially separating the two isotopes (to some degree) and discarding the U-238 component.]

My credentials are that I am a trained physicist and have been a practising geochemist.

(I wouldn't like this message to suggest that I endorse MKY, however, especially their uranium/thorium show in Qld.)

Cheers and I hope we all survive this market hurricane.