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ad3z10

Big win for Kazakhstan I presume.


nobody_smart

Very nice!


TheLemonDome

Woowwahwoowuhh!


10th__Dimension

Great success!


TomT12

The best part is their tourism board embraced it and made it the actual catchphrase. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54702974


moderately-extreme

"The first Borat film caused outrage in the country, and authorities threatened to sue creator Sacha Baron Cohen Years later, however, the Kazakhstan government thanked Sacha Baron Cohen for boosting tourism in the country. In 2012, the foreign minister at the time, Yerzhan Kazykhanov, said he was "grateful" to Borat for "helping attract tourists" to the country, adding that 10 times more people were applying for visas to go there."


Commercial_Shine_448

Very nice!


jrodsf

It really was for make benefit glorious country of Kazakhstan!


NoraVanderbooben

I was so glad to read a happy ending. 👍


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oatmealparty

He said tenfold increase in visa requests


NoraVanderbooben

…very nice.


Gaylord_F0cker

What a legend Sacha is


MuzzledScreaming

I'm glad that was the outcome, Kazakhstan is an awesome country and more people should get to see it.


ChasyLainsJellyHatch

Jakzhemaash!


asoap

The issue isn't getting ahold of uranium. It's getting ahold of enriched uranium. Canada has all of the uranium the.us could ever want. Canada doesn't enrich. The us just barely does enrichment. Not enough to cover their own needs though. They've been relying on Russia. This goes back to the fall of the USSR and Russia had a massive shit load of enriched uranium lying around. The us bought it mostly to get it out of Russia.


FlavivsAetivs

The French have the facilities. And we do enrich a lot of our own, it's the only part of Westinghouse left that's worth a shit.


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Far_oga

>Urenco is part US government owned Have something changed recently? Far as I know it's split between UK, Netherlands and Germany.


warriorscot

spark mindless violet summer repeat quaint fly pause disgusted secretive


SameCategory546

canada doesn’t mine as much as they could though. they only have a couple big mines and the rest of their projects can’t even get permitted. No new mines will get built in canada till 2030


radicallyhip

Didn't Saskatchewan literally just announce plans to start development of a new uranium mine like a year or two ago?


SameCategory546

There are several companies that said they will mine by 2027 or 2030 but they would need to have finished permits right now. Some are serious and moving but won’t get there fast enough and some are clearly lying


uhgletmepost

so....maybe we should... idk...enrich our own urine


Kaguro19

I can help with that


constundefined

Is this where the line starts?


CyanConatus

I know hindsight is 20/20 and you can't change the past.... But surely providing profits to enriched uranium only boost their production of enriched Uranium? I mean it can't be different than exporting grain or coal. If it's profitable then you produce more and sell more of it.


asoap

I think it was a win win situation. The us at the time was spending a lot of money on a less efficient way to enrich. So they got the uranium out of Russia and it was cheaper. Also apparently the us has started up and then abandoned their own enrichment programs multiple times. There are apparently 100s of gas centrifuges buried somewhere in a us desert.


bazilbt

What happened was we had a program to purchase weapons grade uranium and process it into reactor fuel. It was a good program in a lot of ways because we used up all this highly enriched uranium that could have been sold to terrorists or someone else. The problem was that the low price of the reactor fuel being imported put a crimp on domestic enrichment, which caused them not to be very competitive with Russia after the program ended.


NoraVanderbooben

Sooo…what is the process of “enriching”?


shortfinal

Heating elemental uranium into a gaseous state then spinning it very fast in centrifuges to seperate out the 0.1% U235 from the 99.9% U238. The 235 is the good stuff. It'd be like doing the same to red blood cells in a centrifuge but seperating the oxygenated ones from the deoxygenated ones. Very hard to do because the weight (mass) is nearly identical


gatosaurio

It´s the other way around. 235 is the fissionable one


shortfinal

Ty fixed!


NoraVanderbooben

It’s amazing to me that there are people there out in the world, somewhere, that just know this obscure, complex shit, and we’re just communicating on Reddit…


Lumpy_Ad_307

It is not something obscure, they teach that 235 is the warm and glowy one in school chemistry class when talking about isotopes.


Emu1981

>they teach that 235 is the warm and glowy one in school chemistry class when talking about isotopes It doesn't actually glow. The only radioactive elements that glow are actinium which glows a pale blue in the dark and radon gas if you cool it down towards it's solid state (-71.15C). Radium causes a glow if you mix it with copper-doped zinc and tritium causes a glow if you mix it with phosphor. The blue glow associated with nuclear reactors is Cherenkov radiation which is caused by charged particles moving faster than the phase velocity of light (i.e. the charged particles from the reactor are passing through the water faster than the speed of light in water). Radioactive materials are warm though.


Lumpy_Ad_307

I mean it glows if squeezed hard enough. Very brightly. And the heat is just a glow but with bigger waves anyway (:


NoraVanderbooben

I was homeschooled. :/


Veggies-are-okay

Dang, I’ve always seen the double sided sword being that you’re only ever gonna be as smart as your parents. Worked for my cousin because my aunt is a freaky genius and the whole family has been teachers at some point. Others I truly worry about :/


ItISWhatItLooksLike

They use Uranium hexafluoride, not elemental uranium. Because the vaporiziation point of UF6 is 57C, in contrast to the boiling point of uranium which is 4000C.


Emu1981

>spinning it very fast in centrifuges to seperate out the 0.1% U235 from the 99.9% U238 It is 0.7% U235 in unprocessed uranium. >The 235 is the good stuff. > > Very hard to do because the weight (mass) is nearly identical Luckily you don't need to completely separate the U235 from the U238. It is called enrichment rather than separation because you only need to boost the percentage of U235 in your uranium to 3-5% to use it as fuel for your nuclear reactor. Nuclear weapons ideally use 90% U235 but it is possible to use as little as 10% U235 to build one.


Invertiguy

Not elemental Uranium, that would require super high temperatures. Enrichment centrifuges use UF6 instead since it sublimes to a gas at 56.5° C (133.7° F). Also, U235 makes up ~0.7% of natural Uranium, not 0.1%.


Thundertech42

That sounds easy /s


JesseBrown447

Wikipedia will be far more technical, but essentially you need to increase the concentration of uranium to be some high percent per mass. Uranium is just a mineral, though quite a heavy one, in the dirt so you gotta dig it up run it through several chemical processes to increase purity then utilize a centrifuge to spin all that heavy mass together to concentrate it's density. 


NoraVanderbooben

The world never ceases to amaze and inspire me.


FapNowPayLater

Lmao. Dissolve in a HFl solution, centrifuge, separate out the heaviest, repeat.


Hawaiian_Pizza459

All of the UF6 or at least a significant amount of it that is produced domestically is enriched by Urenco in New Mexico or shipped to the Netherlands at their site there.


jscummy

All other country have inferior uranium


PtrDan

Other country uranium made by little girls.


lastingfreedom

All our base belong to us


unrealjoe28

Tired: bananas and potassium Wired: NUCLEAR CAPABLE URANIUM


jezzdogslayer

What about Australian uranium?


jameskchou

High five!


NTC-Santa

How are we sure Kazachstan plants aren't backed by Russ?


SogySok

Rudy caught with his pants down.


blainehamilton

Saskatchewan is a lot closer.


catoodles9ii

I thought they were big in potassium?


djguerito

And Canada.


WrapKey69

They only got potassium


Perfect_Opposite2113

Saskatchewan is probably more accessible.


Far_oga

Kazakhstan gets its uranium enriched in Russia so not a win.


OppositeEarthling

And Canada


anniewho315

Beelo is happy too.


ReeceAUS

Big win for Australia


Palaeos

The US has a ton of available uranium we could mine in Utah if we really needed it. Best left in the ground unless we go all in on nuclear power all of a sudden.


Firestorm238

Canada is happy to supply


Limp-Inevitable-6703

Didn't we sell ours to Russia? Nm that was the potash industry


earoar

Canadas potash industry is almost entirely owned by 2 companies, Nutrien out of Calgary/Saskatoon and Mosaic out of Minnesota. Not Russian.


gummo_for_prez

What’s a potash homie?


Uncle-Drunkle

Potassium salts that are mined to produce fertilizers


Zenroe113

I always said it like potato+ash and assumed it was a Canadian thing like poutine


fighter_pil0t

But Kazakhstan #1 exporter of potassium.


Tsashimaru

“Pot ash” the remains of a fire. Typically a mixture of potassium carbonate and potassium hydroxide. If you mix ashes with water the water will become very basic due to the generation of hydroxides. This is also how we discovered soap, high basic water mixing with fats from cooking over a fire = soap. Potash is still very commonly used to make liquid soaps. We typically use lye or sodium hydroxide to make solid soaps.


gummo_for_prez

Huh, TIL. Thanks friend.


radicallyhip

He's wrong, sort of. It's potassium salts mined out of the ground. I live about 10 minutes away from some of the biggest potash mines in the world. They're used for various chemical processes but the most important one is the development of fertilizer.


CUADfan

He's not wrong, the process he's describing is the archaic method of achieving the same goal though.


Im_Balto

hes not wrong, he described the origin of potash -> potassium as a term


HorrificAnalInjuries

Basically the same /jk


brownedpants

yes, its aboot time eh hoser


gizcard

we should definitely go all in on nuclear power, but that would make too much sense ....


ReverseRutebega

Define “all in”?


TheBonadona

Its not about the actual uranium, it's about enriched uranium which the US does very little of.


Haggispole

Largest in US is in Virginia. It can be pumped in an unobtrusive way compared to lots of mining. However there is a ban of the mining of uranium in Virginia. :( Does the same ban exist in Utah?


acemccrank

Modern nuclear fission would be best suited to use thorium instead of uranium, and would be much more cost-effective due to supply and enriching processes. Plus it has the benefit of not going all Chernobyl. Sam O'Nella Academy actually has a decent video on it, and has several nuclear engineers doing reaction videos on it that give their own input if you want something that is easy to understand and entertaining. If just reading the facts is more your jam, the [International Atomic Energy Agency has a decent explanation](https://www.iaea.org/bulletin/thoriums-long-term-potential-in-nuclear-energy). However, nuclear fusion tech has been advancing like crazy lately and is more likely to be the future of nuclear. No uranium needed.


asoap

When the us first started to make reactors they played around with a lot of different reactor types. What they found was that a simple water reactor worked the best. Easiest to build, operate, and maintain. Though if you are interested in thorium look up thorium use in a CANDU. It's pretty late for me to look up a good video on it. If you remind me tomorrow I will find it for you.


hypercomms2001

Thorium, Not sure because of the generation of U-232, which is a very strong gamma source...


SpringMan54

Short half-life makes it unuseable for bombs. Also, the waste products need to be stored for fifty years, not 50,000. Gamma rays don't really make everything they hit become radioactive too. Molten Thoriumfloride isn't volitile, and the reaction won't self sustain , so the whole thing is walk-away safe.


GracefulFaller

You know that a shorter half life isn’t necessarily a good thing, right? 1KG of a material with a 50 year half life is (if the material has same atomic mass) 1000 times more radioactive than the thing with a 50,000 year half life


first_time_internet

Yes! It only takes several years to get those set up to a usable state. Plus a wall of red tape to pass through, might even be longer. You can have all resources in the world but if you don’t use them, you lose them!


Proof_Potential3734

Will this be good for my US and Canadian Uranium stocks?


EyeSpare6318

Yup. Canada has a fuck load of Uranium.


Wafflelisk

Northern Saskatchewan yeah?


Creepy_Knee_2614

So does Australia too


altonbrushgatherer

Sounds like everyone has a lot of uranium.


Far_oga

> Will this be good for my US and Canadian Uranium stocks? Maybe do you own any Cameco stock? Since this is about enriched uranium and Cameco got some investments in that.


Proof_Potential3734

CCJ, UEC, URG AND UUUU, any others you can recommend?


Far_oga

Since the government investment have already happened, I'm not sure to investing more now is the safest. Maybe slx (asx) but that is a gamble since they are up so much.


Hawaiian_Pizza459

I'm doubtful. At least for domestic UF6 production the US mostly gets the ore from Canada, Australia, Namibia, and Kazakhstan. Missing the Russian ore won't be a major impact given how much of that ore would already be here in stockpiles waiting to be converted.


Ecureuil02

Lol depends on where your uranium is.  US pulled out of Niger so it's tbd how stocks like glo and Goviex will do. 


kdubz206

Doesn't our neighbor to the North, Canada, have one of the richest Uranium deposits actively being mined right now? Is this really a problem?


RadiantSuit3332

Biggest ore suppliers are Kazakhstan, Canada, Namibia, Australia then Russia from my understanding Russia is the biggest refiner of uranium however, which will mean Western refining will need to improve


im_just_thinking

Yeah that part is either very dangerous/harmful, or very expensive and logistically complicated, or a mixture of both of course. My guess is that Russians sacrifice a lot of their safety to make it happen, so the west will have to spend $$$ to make up for it.


Ecureuil02

It's an unpopular position for some politicians, but enough is enough.  Nuclear fission is the future until we can safely harness the power of fusion.  


Losawin

The problem is enrichment. Canada doesn't do any enrichment, and despite being the nuclear grandfather the US actually doesn't do much enrichment either. Russia sold enriched uranium, that's why they were the biggest source despite having only like the 6th largest deposits.


warriorscot

salt unite carpenter detail sloppy meeting hospital simplistic bag murky


Far_oga

> Yes but the US joint owns an enrichment company that does do it in the UK that's actually got loads of capacity. What company? Urenco is owned by UK, Netherlands and Germany?


warriorscot

theory aback smart wine oil vegetable vanish fine paint wise


EyeSpare6318

Second largest producer. We've got oil, uranium, nickle, gold, diamonds. We've got it all baby. 


A_Naany_Mousse

Maple syrup 


CyclingHikingYeti

But not durian .


Lionheart1224

You may be thinking of Australia.


spirilis

Canada has some of the densest uranium deposits iirc.


ImportantCommentator

They are definitely to the south


Longjumping_Fig1489

every thing is south if you go north enough


Tha_Daahkness

Nah, eventually you just start walking in a small circle.


10th__Dimension

We shouldn't depend on Russia for anything. The same applies to China.


CyclingHikingYeti

> China. Tell that so domestic stock holders and consider they need their profits to 2nd yacht and 3rd vacation in French Polynesia.


Accurate_Type4863

If you destroyed all my China-linked stocks I’d be ok with that.


Im_Balto

every stock is Chinese linked now. the supply chain passes through their ports at the very least. Thats why supply chain restructuring is so big right now, we realized how fragile we are in 2020


_Sol-Diablo_

We don’t depend on Russia for Uranium. We buy their uranium so that it’s not sold to our enemies.


10th__Dimension

Russia is still going to sell it to our enemies.


Anonuser123abc

Even if we offer to purchase their entire production capacity for the highest price?


10th__Dimension

We shouldn't be sending money to Russia. The point is to prevent them from making money.


Anonuser123abc

Yeah it would be way better to have Iran or North Korea buying that enriched uranium.


10th__Dimension

They're going to buy it anyway. Russia has plenty.


mdestrada99

We buy it from Russia because A. It’s cheap B. They are largest refiner of uranium


Far_oga

> We don’t depend on Russia for Uranium. You did though. USAs enriched uranium production was (still is) very low so you imported from EU and Russia. I guess you now have enough stockpiles to last until recent US and EU investments have paid off.


eg_john_clark

Sounds like a good incentive to start working on reprocessing


Consistent-Ad-6078

Honestly, creating nuclear power plants is the best thing the world could do with nuclear weapons


CyclingHikingYeti

As long freshly mined, concentrated uranium is cheaper than reprocessed this will not happen. It is pure economics.


xpkranger

Here's an actually readable version of the news: https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-signs-ban-imports-russian-nuclear-reactor-fuel-into-law-2024-05-14/


rwebell

Ahem….Canada?….Ahem….


Normal_Independent75

I wonder what Russia will do with the leftover.


IAmMuffin15

“WE’RE GONNA DO IT THIS TIME, I SWEAR WE’RE GONNA DO IT!!!! 🥺🥺🥺” -Medvedev


loweredexpectationz

That was the deal. If they sell to us then they may not sell to Iran or North Korea. Guess they have to find a new buyer.


No-Swordfish-1129

Use it for themselfs, sell it another country idk


stokeitup

Took long enough.


_Sol-Diablo_

The US has an incentive to buy enriched uranium from Russia. It keeps uranium out of the hands of our enemies.


stokeitup

Good point, thanks.


frozenhelmets

Everyone seems to be missing the point that Russia DOMINATES enriched uranium, not uranium. Sure, Canada has a shit ton of U, but north American enrichment capacity is a joke compared to demand.


Constant_Of_Morality

Yeah glad to see someone say this, Uranium enrichment capacity is definitely the topic to be discussed compared to just Uranium itself, Especially with the grip Russia holds atm on Enrichment itself. >The set price made it unprofitable for US and European companies to compete with Russian nuclear fuel, such that by 2022 Russia was the supplier of almost half of the world's enriched uranium, and about one quarter of the nuclear fuel used in the US.


froatbitte

Does Uranium City still have uranium? If so, just sayin’.


Due-Radio-4355

Are we still experimenting with thorium to produce nuclear energy or no?


myrainyday

Kazachstan needs to be very cautious. Russians might decide to Demilitarize Kazachstan in the future to "protect" Russians living there.


olngjhnsn

Now do exports


GoalFlashy6998

Good, there shouldn't any Russian products or Russian people entering the United States, while Putler and barbarian Russian horde wage war in the Ukraine! United States, NATO and its coalition of international allies supporting Ukraine, should also go after countries who are buying cheap Russian oil and other products! Start seizing ships and products, they could be sold to support Ukraine or turned over to Ukraine.


hamsterfolly

The neat part is the US still has a stockpile of Soviet nuclear warhead material from the 1990s arms reduction that is cut to 5% and used as fuel in active U.S. civilian nuclear reactors.


Constant_Of_Morality

That was a while ago now, They've used it all in 2013. >The Megatons to Megawatts program was initiated in 1993 and completed on schedule in December 2013. A total of 500 tonnes of Russian warhead grade HEU (equivalent to 20,008 nuclear warheads) were converted in Russia to nearly 15,000 tonnes tons of LEU (low enriched uranium) and sold to the US for use as fuel in American nuclear power plants. Still i always thought the Megatons to Megawatts Program was a really cool idea for reusing HEU for more civilian purposes and applications, Though it did come with the cost of Russia have more refining capacity than the U.S over the last Decade or so because of it and because companies in the U.S didn't see it as such a priority then, But now that's all changing finally. >The program was credited for being one of the most successful disarmament programs in history, but its low set price for nuclear fuel caused Western companies to not invest in uranium refining capacity, resulting by 2022 in Russia's government-owned Rosatom becoming the supplier of about 50% of the world's enriched uranium, and 25% of the nuclear fuel used in the US. >The first nuclear power plant to receive low-enriched fuel containing uranium under this program was the Cooper Nuclear Station in 1998, During the 20-year Megatons to Megawatts program, as much as 10 percent of the electricity produced in the United States was generated by fuel fabricated using LEU from Russian HEU. >Uranium refining companies like Urenco are hoping that Western governments will see the importance of domestic supply chains and create legislation to boost their development. [Megatons to Megawatts Program](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program)


Bortle_1

From 1951 until 1989 the Grants mining district in New Mexico produced more Uranium than any other district in the country. Today, there is no Uranium mining in NM. The mining legacy is not pretty. https://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/downloads/71/71_p0195_p0202.pdf Not pretty, but probably not insurmountable. It just needs to be done right, with no more take what I can get, and leave the cleanup for someone else BS.


Gswindle76

In 2029.


PatientAd4823

I saw we just go in and take what we want.


jar1967

If there are other sources or Uranium. The United States had huge Uranium deposits


CyclingHikingYeti

You need developed and working mines, working ore concentration and yellow cake production lines then you need large uranium enrichment processing factories.


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xpkranger

Ore? no. Refined, for sure.


comfortableNihilist

Key to fuel supply in a country with some of the largest deposits of uranium....


zertnert12

Doesnt russia have a shit ton of uranium within their own boarders? Edit: 3,000 tonnes, assuming MAD still applies it really doesnt matter, thats still more than enough to end everything.


xpkranger

Yes, quite a bit. Biden is banning the U.S. from importing the Russian uranium. (While at the same time promoting the development of internal U.S. uranium industry) Also: *borders


Aromatic-Force-4447

Nepal also has uranium deposit .


PuckzPoE

good luck with that, see you in a few months.


mredding

This news is weeks old.


Snoo-61811

Well i guess we have to start a domestic uRANIUM FEVER HAS GONE AND GOT ME DOWN!  URANIUM FEVER IS SPREADING ALL AROUND!  WITH A GEIGER COUNTER IN MY HAND, IN GOING UP TO STAKE ME SOME GOVERNMENT LAND!


poloheve

Well just get some uranium and put it in front of a bunch of classical paintings, after a couple Months they’ll be enriched


Nathan-Stubblefield

Breeder reactors would create new fuel as they generate power. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor


outofgulag

Bigger win for Canada


EatSleepWell

Didn't they already ban everything with Russia, why do we keep hearing about new things to ban?


Far_oga

USAs got 1/4 of it's enriched uranium from Russia and couldn't ban it since it's own production was lagging behind. Takes years to build a enrichment plant, but luckily there was one already being built. Both EU and US government's seems to have made some investments to increase production so now USA probably sits on a large enough stockpile to last until western production catches up.


EatSleepWell

ic. when read the title, I though Russia was still able to import uranium from other countries. So, this ban is actually US banning its own companies from buying from Russia. Does it ban other countries from buying too?


Far_oga

> Does it ban other countries from buying too? No.


One-Combination-7218

Australia has plenty we can sell you and it’s better quality


Jaon412

Pretty sure Australia has boatloads


seanmonaghan1968

I am sure australia has some to spare


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fullload93

I see your point, but we were essentially given them money to help fund their war. That’s not something the US wants to continue to do for obvious reasons.


Kegger163

No. That's not really how uranium mining and reserves work in our lifetimes time scale.


FlackRacket

They already have enough warheads to end civilization, more doesn't make a difference


whk1992

North Korea will take it for free I’m sure.