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Don't most of these techniques wind up producing a fair amount of highly enriched products which could easily be used for nuclear weapons? Seems like a big dow

Don't most of these techniques wind up producing a fair amount of highly enriched products which could easily be used for nuclear weapons? Seems like a big downside at the scales we're talking about.

acidburnNSA 3y ago
That's certainly what Jimmy Carter was worried about when he cancelled the USA's national breeder reactor project, the Clinch River Breeder. He then banned reprocessing entirely, but Reagan unbanned it in 1981, so it is at least legal now. This has been an ongoing debate though. Scientists have developed more sophisticated reprocessing processes that keep all the actinides together rather than pulling out Plutonium on its own. And in any case, the plutonium is reactor-grade rather than weapons grade, (but super-sophisticated weapons designers can make bombs out of any-grade plutonium). George Bush Jr. tried something called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, where existing weapons states would run a bunch of reprocessing plants and contribute fuel to an international fuel bank. Non-weapons countries could reliably get fuel from it and give the spent fuel (aka nuclear waste) back for further recycling/reprocessing/treatment. It wasn't super popular among the 'have not' countries, who didn't want to be beholden to some random fuel bank.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  I'd trust Carters opinion on this a lot more. He is a nuclear expert and even personally led a team that cleaned up a meltdown in a reactor in Canada.
  - acidburnNSA 3y ago
    It's a very long stretch to say he was a nuclear expert. Actual nuclear experts do not consider him one of us. His policies were pretty damaging to the industry. His hope was that of the US didn't recycle nuclear fuel, then maybe other countries wouldn't. But that was not the case. The UK, France, Japan, Russia went ahead with nuclear fuel recycling anyway. https://atomicinsights.com/jimmy-carter-never-served-nuclear-submarine/ https://atomicinsights.com/jimmy-carter-never-served-nuclear...
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      According to this it is true: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-nuclear-meltdown/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-nuclear-meltd... I suppose a lot of this is still embedded in top secret red tape :(

Don't most of these techniques wind up producing a fair amount of highly enriched products which could easily be used for nuclear weapons? Seems like a big downside at the scales we're talking about.

acidburnNSA 3y ago

That's certainly what Jimmy Carter was worried about when he cancelled the USA's national breeder reactor project, the Clinch River Breeder. He then banned reprocessing entirely, but Reagan unbanned it in 1981, so it is at least legal now. This has been an ongoing debate though. Scientists have developed more sophisticated reprocessing processes that keep all the actinides together rather than pulling out Plutonium on its own. And in any case, the plutonium is reactor-grade rather than weapons grade, (but super-sophisticated weapons designers can make bombs out of any-grade plutonium). George Bush Jr. tried something called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, where existing weapons states would run a bunch of reprocessing plants and contribute fuel to an international fuel bank. Non-weapons countries could reliably get fuel from it and give the spent fuel (aka nuclear waste) back for further recycling/reprocessing/treatment. It wasn't super popular among the 'have not' countries, who didn't want to be beholden to some random fuel bank.

wkat4242 3y ago
I'd trust Carters opinion on this a lot more. He is a nuclear expert and even personally led a team that cleaned up a meltdown in a reactor in Canada.
- acidburnNSA 3y ago
  It's a very long stretch to say he was a nuclear expert. Actual nuclear experts do not consider him one of us. His policies were pretty damaging to the industry. His hope was that of the US didn't recycle nuclear fuel, then maybe other countries wouldn't. But that was not the case. The UK, France, Japan, Russia went ahead with nuclear fuel recycling anyway. https://atomicinsights.com/jimmy-carter-never-served-nuclear-submarine/ https://atomicinsights.com/jimmy-carter-never-served-nuclear...
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    According to this it is true: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-nuclear-meltdown/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-nuclear-meltd... I suppose a lot of this is still embedded in top secret red tape :(