Question by John: Is it possible to recycle the uranium in retired nuclear warheads?
I just read that thousands of nuclear warheads are going to be “retired.” Would it be possible to recycle the enriched uranium and use them for useful purposes? Like electricity, etc? Thanks.
Best answer:
Answer by Chris
Actually, that is already being done. I believe between 10-20% of the worlds nuclear energy comes from surplus, or recycled, nuclear stock piles, namely from enriched warheads.
This helps off set the mining costs, as we are currently not mining enough Uranium to fulfill the power needs.
These numbers may be wrong and I don’t feel like searching for them, but I believe we mine around 40,000 tons of Uranium a year and use around 10,000 tons of military Uranium a year for Civilian power.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
