Nuclear reprocessing

Nuclear reprocessing is when we take used fuel from nuclear power plants and extract the usable material from it. Think of it like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube that's almost empty.

In a nuclear power plant, fuel rods containing uranium are used to produce energy. But over time, the uranium gets used up and the fuel rods become less effective at producing energy. When this happens, the fuel rods are taken out of the nuclear reactor and put into a pool of water to cool down.

Once the fuel rods are cool enough, they are transported to a reprocessing facility. Here, they go through several different processes to extract the usable material.

First, the used fuel rods are chopped up into smaller pieces using special machines. Then, they are dissolved in acid to extract the usable materials. The leftover material is called waste, and it is stored in special containers designed to keep it safe.

The usable materials that are extracted through this process can be used again as fuel in another nuclear reactor. This means that we can create new energy with the material that was already used before.

Overall, nuclear reprocessing helps us to get the most use out of our nuclear fuel and reduce the amount of waste that we produce.