this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Where do you buy fuel grade uranium in order to run your own reactor?
I'm asking for a friend.
Just one note, nuclear power plants run at around 35% efficiency. This is because they are basically steam generators and tend to not push as hard for safety. I think they can get up to 40-45% with combined cycles and such, but then we are in the "very large" territory
Large scale data centers, like the ones that end up in the news for FAANG are ~100 megawatt footprints.
I have no idea where you're getting 3.4 megawatts as the largest data center in the US, but that is wildly undersized.
Probably in northern Utah.
I think a lot of it is mined in Africa.
Well if you're in the US you can get it from New Mexico and Wyoming. We've even got a few mines here in Texas.
So in the US it's a matter of getting licensed by the NRC and contacting one of the many processing facilities.
Mali has a significant mine that France essentially controls. In America, we have mines but import a lot too.
We actually currently buy about 25% of our uranium supply from Russia, though Congress just passed a ban that’ll go in effect in 90 days. It allows for waivers if there are supply issues, though, so it might end up being more than 90 days. (I have no idea how quickly a country can find a new uranium supplier but it sounds complicated.)
You have to talk to a Westinghouse sells rep. If you want uranium outside of a fuel rod most chemical supplier sell it.
No shopping cart? Was this site built on the 90s?
Chemdirect has a shopping cart?
I know it's a joke, but just wanted to say that Uranium used for fuel is not something you can actually use for weaponry directly. It requires enrichment to increase the concentration of U-235 to weapons-grade levels.
I heard my local data center had a few fall off the truck last week out by lakeview.