4 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Calder_Hall_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Calder_Hall_nuclear... Early commercial nuc

• Turing_Machine 9y ago
  That was more or less a prototype. No one uses power reactors to produce plutonium. It just isn't done.
  • lispm 9y ago
    The UK had 26 of these Magnox reactors for electricity production. These nuclear reactors were coming out of military technology and some of them were built and operated for dual use: Plutonium production and energy production. The UK now sits on around 140 tons of plutonium from fuel reprocessing...
    • Turing_Machine 9y ago
      The UK has about 200 warheads. The US has almost 7,000. The US has never used commercial power reactors to produce plutonium, because they simply aren't well-suited for the purpose.
      • Retric 9y ago
        >never used commercial power reactors to produce plutonium That's not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Valley_Demonstration_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Valley_Demonstration_Proj...
        • valuearb 9y ago
          How did west valley produce power? Your link is unclear.
          • Retric 9y ago
            No, it simply reprocessed spent nuclear fuel. It was not economically useful to do so, but we only really learned that by trying.
        • DrScump 9y ago
          I think it is true (in the USA) but rather meaningless. I don't think we want commercial entities producing plutonium unsupervised by the military.
        • Turing_Machine 9y ago
          That was essentially a demonstration plant. Note that it only ran for six years, only produced 1,926 kg of plutonium over its entire lifespan, and was shut down because producing plutonium from spent fuel from commercial power reactors proved to be uneconomic. 2000 kg of plutonium is a rounding error, given that well over 1 million kg of plutonium have been produced since WWII.
  • lispm 9y ago
    Another example is North Korea: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/taechon.htm http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/taechon.htm
    • boomboomsubban 9y ago
      The second paragraph concludes the reactor was built for nuclear weapons development, I don't see how it can be considered "another example."
      • lispm 9y ago
        It's another example of a reactor designed to produce electricity and plutionium. North Korea a;so operated a smaller 5 MWe reactor creating electricity for a town and plutonium for their weapons program.
        • boomboomsubban 9y ago
          It's a reactor designed to produce large amounts of plutonium. Any reactor produces some amount of energy, nuclear reactions are famous for their energy creation.
          • lispm 9y ago
            > It's a reactor designed to produce large amounts of plutonium. It's a dual-use reactor: plutonium and electricity production (200 MWe). > Any reactor produces some amount of energy But not electricity. For that a power plant has also turbines, generators, etc., ... The US for example had no electricity production in the early reactors for Plutonium production. But the US Hanford N produced both Plutonium and electricity for the commercial grid for 21 years... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Reactor
            • boomboomsubban 9y ago
              >But not electricity. For that a power plant has also turbines, generators, etc., ... Yes,but if you don't do that, you're just wasting energy. The US realized that, which is why they added electricity generation to the N Reactor. Both were still designed to create plutonium, and would not be built without the aim of nuclear weapons. It's like saying we grow the same corn for the edible part and for biomass. While technically true, the edible part is driving the production.