Uranium oxide added to glass produces a yellow to greenish hue. A uranium-colored glass object was found near Naples, Italy, and dated to about 79 A.D. Uranium has been used to color glass for almost 2 millennia. For example, while a gallon of milk weighs about 8 pounds, a gallon container of uranium would weigh about 150 pounds. At about 19 grams per cubic centimeter, it is 1.6 times more dense than lead. A uranium baseball would weigh over 8.5 pounds! Uranium Burning Pointįinely divided uranium burns readily in air at 150 to 175 degrees Celsius (300 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit). Uranium BaseballĪ major league baseball weighs about 5.25 ounces. Uranium is 40 times more naturally abundant than silver. nuclear power plants that produce over 20 percent of U.S. In early 2007 the price approached $100.00 per pound. By mid 2006, the price had risen to approximately $45.00 per pound. The price of uranium was approximately $10.75 per pound in early 2003. Make an "OK" sign with your forefinger and thumb to see how big that ball would be. One pound of uranium will make a ball only 1.3 inches in diameter. Nuclear power plants helped avoid 90 percent of all carbon emissions averted in the U.S. Natural Abundance of UraniumĬoncentration - uranium ranks 48th among the most abundant elements found in natural crustal rock. Uranium was named after the planet Uranus, discovered only eight years earlier in 1781. Uranium was isolated in 1841 by French chemist Eugène Péligot. This is equivalent to burning 16,000 tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of oil. One ton of natural uranium can produce more than 40 million kilowatt-hours of electricity. Stacking 57,600 standard DUF 6 cylinders end to end would make a tower 720,000 feet tall! That's over 136 miles high! Energy from Uranium The entire inventory of 57,634 cylinders weighs more than all eight of the Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers combined! DUF 6 Cylinders
DUF 6 Cylinder Weight Comparisonsħ,142 cylinders of DUF 6 weighs as much as a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It would take over 70 cruisers to weigh more than the Nation's inventory of DUF 6! The Navy owns only 27 Ticonderoga-class cruisers. DUF 6 Cylinder Weight ComparisonsĪ Ticonderoga-class cruiser is about equal in weight to 706 cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF 6). Henri Antoine Becquerel discovered that uranium was radioactive in 1896. This was accomplished by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman.
It took until 1938 to discover that uranium could be split to release energy, that is fission. Uranium was discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth, a German chemist, who isolated an oxide of uranium while analyzing pitchblende samples from the Joachimsal silver mines in the former Kingdom of Bohemia located in the present day Czech Republic. It is our hope that you will find these "fun facts," interesting and thought-provoking, in terms of understanding the challenge before the Department in managing this material and providing for its ultimate conversion and disposition. The Department put together the following "fun facts," as a means of putting into perspective the characteristics of this material, in terms recognizable from everyday life. Over the years, the Department of Energy has received numerous inquiries from the public and particularly from school-aged children, who were interested in understanding more about the Department's inventory of depleted uranium hexafluoride and ultimately, how the Government is going to address the disposition of this legacy material. A collection of facts about uranium, DUF 6, and DOE’s DUF 6 inventory.
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