Uranium for nuclear power. Resources, mining and transformation to fuel / Уран для ядерной энергетики. Ресурсы, добыча и трансформация в топливо

Compared with other mineral commodities, especially metals, whose utility has become evident by centuries of trial and error, the appreciation of uranium has developed from theories based in physics in the 1930s to exploit the unique energy density of uranium’s transformation in nuclear fission. Initially this was in the crucible of a world war, but always beyond military uses was the promise of the “uranium boiler” canvassed in the second British MAUD (Military Application of Uranium Detonation) report in July 1941—the work of “one of the most effective scientific committees that ever existed.” <...>