After the Libyan National Army announced, on Thursday evening, the discovery of 10 uranium cylinders that the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations had declared missing in the south of the country, several questions arose regarding uranium and its use as nuclear fuel.
Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered the loss of regarding 2.5 tons of natural uranium from a site in Libya, the agency said in a confidential statement published by Archyde.com on Wednesday.
The Director General of the International Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said that the site is not currently under the control of the Libyan Nuclear Authority, “noting that the examination was scheduled for 2022, but it was postponed for security reasons.
Here is everything you need to know regarding uranium and its use as nuclear fuel.
What is uranium and where can it be found?
- Uranium is a heavy metal that occurs naturally in low concentrations in soil, rock and water.
- It is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals.
- According to data released by the World Nuclear Association in 2022, regarding two-thirds of the world’s production of mined uranium comes from Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia.
What are the uses of uranium?
- Radioactive metal is the most widely used fuel for nuclear power because of its abundance and the relative ease of splitting its atoms.
- It is used in cancer treatment, marine propulsion machines, and nuclear weapons.
- The isotope U-238 is the most common naturally occurring uranium, but it cannot produce a fission chain reaction, the process of splitting a uranium atom to release energy.
- The isotope U-235 can be concentrated through a process called enrichment to produce energy by fission, making it suitable for use in reactors and nuclear weapons.
How much uranium is needed to make a nuclear weapon?
Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says the amount of uranium lost would have contained enough U-235 for a first-generation nuclear bomb if enriched to more than 90 percent.
Lyman added: “It is not a direct or immediate threat of proliferation, but the loss of a large amount of natural uranium is a concern because of the possibility of converting it into materials used in nuclear weapons.”
He pointed out that the incident raises questions regarding the ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to maintain the continuity of its knowledge of nuclear materials in countries with active conflict zones.
Libya has not enjoyed much peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled Muammar Gaddafi.
Since 2014, political control has been divided between the factions controlling the east and those controlling the west, and the last major bout of conflict ended in 2020.
The worst case scenario is “for a country to have a clandestine nuclear weapons program and to use that material for such a program,” said Scott Rucker, vice president of nuclear material security for the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
nuclear in Libya
- Libya was seeking to develop a nuclear program that included centrifuges that might enrich uranium, as well as information on designing a nuclear bomb.
- In 2003, the Jamahiriya, under the leadership of its late leader Muammar Gaddafi, abandoned its nuclear weapons programme.
- Libya has not made much progress towards building a bomb.
