kaleidoSCOPE

The biggest challenge today we all are facing is to provide energy for humanity to sustain and flourish. Developing counties like ours (India) are particularly demanding more energy to tread path of progress and development. Energy is one of the most important component to meet the highest potential of an individual, however we should not keep burning fossils for the same. We need more cleaner, greener ways of power production - Nuclear Energy. In this post, we will particularly focus on Thorium. This shows the energy inequality There has been a lot of talk and debate, and of course enthusiasm, about the future of Nuclear Power.   Thorium will play important role in Nuclear Power’s future, particularly for our country (India). So why not know about this extra-ordinary element and its significance? In this post, we will cover following things: India’s Nuclear Power program Thorium physics How Thorium based Nuclear Power plant works? Why there is still not Thori...

Ever wondered how the most talked/feared fuel of the world, Uranium-235, is extracted from the earth crust and made ready to use in power plant? Probably you know three simple steps of Uranium mineral extraction: Digging - Cleaning - Spinning. But we are talking about one of the most advanced fuels that humankind has discovered to power the world. It fuels 11 % of the world power generation capacity. Let’s dig it up little further and see how exactly Uranium reach to the stage of Pellets (HEU - Highly Enriched Uranium), the form where it is 8000 times efficient than Coal! Stage I Ores are obtained by mining Uranium 238, which is naturally abundant. It contains 99.3 % U-238 and only 0.7 % of U-235 . We want U-235 for fuelling the Nuclear Power Plants. Ore is crushed and heated to remove carbon dirt items like gangue particles and clay. This is basically an extraction and cleaning stage. In India, Uranium is mined at Jaduguda and Narwapahar (Singhbhum Belt - Jharkhand) large...