OK, Would someone explain to me WHAT THE @#$%^#$@@*% is "Yellowcake"?

[Pharmer]

I know the issue of uranium from Niger. I know the infamous 16 words. But where did "yellowcake" come from?!!! Help me Freepers!!

[Keith in Iowa]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/957186/posts?page=12#12

[Batrachian]

It's because the ore from which the Uranium is extracted is yellow in color.

[Terp]

http://chemcases.com/2003version/nuclear/nc-06.htm

[poindexter]

As I recall, yellowcake is a semirefined form of uranium ore which serves as the starting material for enriched (and depleted) uranium. It is, as you might guess, yellow.

[b4its2late]

I think it has something to do with nuclear material, but I may be wrong....

[Libloather]

It's something served on birthdays.

[x]

"Yellowcake" means "I'm smarter than you are." Use the word. Use it as often as you can with as many people as you can. Try to work it into every conversation you can. Make puns and jokes with it, even if they aren't funny. Then people will think you are smart and plugged into what's going on in Washington. Or that you are crazy. After a month, stop using it, and look pityingly at anyone who uses last month's buzz word.

To find out what the word really means, go to Dictionary.com and type it in.

[southernnorthcarolina]

[4mycountry]

Calm down, good sir. Sit in the lotus position. You are a blade of grass, swaying gently in the breeze.... hummmmmmmm....

(got that out of a book)

[SamAdams76]

Yellowcake. That's cornbread for the rest of y'all.

[RoseofTexas]

I think the media CLYMERS were the ones who concocted the word Yellowcake to sex up the scandal over Nigers uranium!

[Athelas]

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/yellowcake.html

Yellowcake

Yellowcake is the product of the uranium extraction (milling) process; early production methods resulted in a bright yellow compound, hence the name yellowcake. The material is a mixture of uranium oxides that can vary in proportion and in color from yellow to orange to dark green (blackish) depending at which temperature the material was dried (level of hydration and impurities). The higher drying temperatures produce a darker, less soluble material. Yellowcake is commonly referred to as U3O8 and is assayed as pounds U3O8 equivalent. This fine powder is packaged in drums and sent to a conversion plant that produces uranium hexafluoride (UF6) as the next step in the manufacture of nuclear fuel.

[Nick Danger]

Dried Uranium ore

[VadeRetro]

Good link. It's the mineral uranite, "purified U₃O₈."

[Lacey]

I'm glad you asked because I've been wondering the same thing.

[SES1066]

Yellowcake is milled uranium oxide, known to chemists as U₃O₈. When uranium ore comes out of the mine, it actually contains fairly little of the precious radioactive element. Though some mines in Canada, the world's leading uranium producer, are now yielding ore that contains 20 percent uranium, lower purity levels are more typical. Ore that contains less than 1 percent uranium is not unusual.

The milling process gets rid of the useless minerals that dominate the ore. First, raw ore is passed through a series of industrial-sized crushers and grinders. The resulting "pulped" ore is then bathed in sulphuric acid, a process which leaches out the uranium. After some drying and filtering, the end product is yellowcake: a coarse, oxidized powder that is often yellow in color but can also have a red or gray tint, depending on the number and type of impurities that may remain...

Yellowcake is a first step toward enriched uranium, but it's a long way from being weapons-grade. The powder must still be converted into uranium hexafluoride before it can be enriched, the process that makes the sort of uranium used by nuclear power plants and bomb-makers alike. Because UF₆ can be easily turned into a gas, it is ideal for enrichment, which must be done in a gaseous state.

and so on... Uranium hexafluoride is, incidentally what goes through the gas centrafuges which have to be made of very special materials because uranium hexafluoride is as corrosive as h*** and one of the things that keeps every small nation from going neuclear!

[VadeRetro]

Does it make you glow in the dark?

Besides, isn't the punch line of that joke, "No son! Pie are round. Cornbread are square!"

[Eric Esot]

Mmmm - Cake!

[jimkress]

Ask Betty Crocker or Aunt Jemima.