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My understanding is that weapons-grade plutonium is not easily usable in a conventional reactor; the vast majority of reactors in operation today run on uranium
by mashmac2 13y ago
My understanding is that weapons-grade plutonium is not easily usable in a conventional reactor; the vast majority of reactors in operation today run on uranium, which is enriched to a much lower percentage than weapons-grade fissile material.
TL;DR different elements, different concentrations of isotopes.
- jackpirate 13y agoA standard commercial reactor is ~5% enriched. That means that 5% of the Uranium is U235, and the rest U238. U238 absorbs neutrons, however, eventually becoming plutonium. This plutonium is where a majority of the energy comes from. It's just too damn hard to separate it out into something that would be weapons grade, unless the reactor was specifically built that way from the start.
- dm2 13y agoThey already have the facilities to recycle plutonium for MOX fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Fast_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Fast_reactors http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Fuel-Recycling/Mixed-Oxide-Fuel-MOX http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Fuel-Re... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/mox-fuel_b_2707864.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/mox-fuel_b_27078... http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/basicmoxinfo.htm http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/basicmoxinfo.htm
- fitumpich 13y agowell in a light water reactor some of thr fuel can be Pu, but you really can't go beyond 30%. With that said, if you build a reactor that doesn't need to moderate the neutrons and slow them down you could use nothing but plutonium as a fuel. But why bother, LEU is just fine and you cant make a bomb with it. Whereas plutonium is a proliferation hazard and much more expensive.