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Civilian nuclear reactors exist to keep 50-200kg of weapons grade plutonium on hand and ready to separate at all times. It's not shelf stable and a pure Pu manu
by Schroedingersat 4y ago
Civilian nuclear reactors exist to keep 50-200kg of weapons grade plutonium on hand and ready to separate at all times. It's not shelf stable and a pure Pu manufacturing program is much harder to get social license for.
- p_l 4y agoMajority of reactors in civilian use (outside some research ones) are really, really incapable of properly breeding plutonium, partially because of fears by "nuclear haves" that "have nots" would be able to produce weapons even if under NPT they have inspections etc. to notice that. In fact, civilian nuclear reactors are just as much likely to consume plutonium in MOX fuels. All warhead manufacturing countries have separate, optimized production chains for plutonium.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoHah. What's the Pu240/Pu239 ratio in the most recently loaded set of fuel rods in any given moment?
- p_l 4y agoUnless the fuel rods were highly enriched, below usable for reprocessing. It's literally why USA had been more or less legally trying to stop everyone from running highly-enriched fuels in reactor (or generally make itself a nuisance for projects that in turn require no enrichment at all, because that stops dependency on limited enrichment facilities).
- Schroedingersat 4y agoYou're conflating two things and applying them to a third unrelated situation. High enriched U is a proliferation risk because it's easier to enrich to weapons grade. Fuel rods that have been through a full fuel cycle are 'useless' because of the Pu 240. Fuel rods that have been in a reactor for 1-2 years (present in every 'civilian' reactor at all times) are neither of these things. And contain weapons grade Pu that can be used if you have Pu separation facilities.