[asdfman123]

Apparently the old method of gas diffusion for uranium enrichment used a ton of power.

They'd convert uranium to uranium fluoride gas, then repeatedly force it through membranes. The lighter isotopes would be more likely to permeate.

I guess all that pumping pressure consumed a lot of power. Centrifuge technology uses far less.

[credit_guy]

> Centrifuge technology uses far less

Fun fact: uranium enrichment centrifuges don't play nice with earthquakes. They spin so fast that they have huge inertia. When there's an earthquake, the support of the machine moves with the Earth, and the spinning part stays in place, so the machine is ripped apart. It happened with an early Iranian covert nuclear project.

[Animats]

That's the plot of a Tom Clancy book. I can't find a reference to it happening in the real world.

[starkrights]

Ever heard of STUXNET?

[felipemnoa]

I wonder if it is technically infeasible to isolate the machine against earthquakes?

[mistrial9]

need some refs on that "secret program" part

[credit_guy]

I was wrong. It was Pakistan, not Iran. The enrichment program was certainly covert though.

  In September 1981, a powerful earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale shook Islamabad and the surrounding area. Pakistani scientists at Kahuta were on a lunch break when the earth shook, forcing them to run to work stations only to hear the sounds of explosions. Some four thousand centrifuges operating in the Khan Research Laboratory had crashed. The earthquake had unbalanced the rotors, operating in a vacuum at some 64,000 revolutions per minute (RPMs); they hit their casings and turned to powder, making sounds like hand grenades exploding. 

[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Eating_Grass/yGgrNAsKZj...

[pphysch]

Yes, especially given what we now know about STUXNET...

[vgeek]

You can visit a gaseous diffusion site outside of Oak Ridge, TN at a new, albeit small, museum: https://amse.org/k-25-history-center/ Much of the infrastructure has been leveled, but there are a few remnants. Site selection factors included obscurity, lots of water from nearby rivers and electricity availability-- they needed MW in a time where KW was a lot of power. There is also the AMSE itself and tours of supercomputers at ORNL.

Due to the availability of hydro generation in the early 20th century, Alcoa, TN (Aluminum Company of America) also established operations in the same area due to the energy required for smelting. Their other large operation hub? Niagara Falls.

[fyokdrigd]

not membranes. mass spectrometer. literally shots particles up and sort them by distance. mind boggling stupid simple.

[morkalork]

Also the sheer volume of material that has to be processed and reprocessed again when its in gas form rather than a solid or liquid.