3 ms·
>a couple tons of plutonium Is that a typo? tons?
by moralestapia 6y ago
>a couple tons of plutonium
Is that a typo? tons?
- doikor 6y agoYes if it is supposed to run for 30 years. See the "Reactors with Lifetime Cores" section of https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/slides/2014/20141105/glaser-11-05-14.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/sl...
- moralestapia 6y agoThanks, I had no idea they consumed that much. The ref. is for 200MWe so I'd guess that for 1-5MW it would be less but no idea if it scales linearly. Also, could you load all the fuel at once and leave it running? Or would you have to refuel every n years?
- ska 6y ago> Also, could you load all the fuel at once and leave it running? Some designs call for exactly this. After all it's heavy, so the volume isn't much.
- wincy 6y agoKeep in mind that one cubic feet of plutonium weighs ~1200 pounds. A basketball made of solid plutonium would weigh 300 pounds or so.
- ttul 6y agoTwo (metric) tonnes of plutonium takes up 100 liters of space, or about 3.5 cubic feet.
- PeterisP 6y agoProbably not really. It's much less than normal reactors - e.g. the infamous Chernobyl 4th block had 217 tons of uranium fuel in it, so a couple tons = two orders of magnitude less.