Not much has changed in that regard.

awake,

Although the antinuclear movement would like you to believe that the nuclear power industry was started to create material for nuclear weapons; that statement is not true in the slightest. Every bit of nuclear weapons material in US nuclear weapons was created at either the Hanford site in Washington State or the Savannah River site in South Carolina. The Dept. of Energy, and its predecessor the Atomic Energy Commission built a number of specially designed production reactors that are optimized for the making of weapons grade material for nuclear weapons. That's where every bit of the material in US nuclear weapons came from.

Nuclear power plants are actually not very good for producing material for nuclear weapons; hence the distinction between "weapon grade" ( as produced in the production reactors ) and "reactor grade" that comes from commercial power reactors. As the efficiency of nuclear fuel utilization in nuclear power reactors has increased from about 12,000 Mw-days/metric tonne for the early Gen I reactors to the modern day Gen II reactors that originally output material at 40,000 Mw-days/metric tonne back in the '70s; are now outputting material at 55,000-60,000 Mw-days/metric tonne; which is virtually useless for nuclear weapons purposes.

One of the main reasons that utilities have not constructed new nuclear power plants is due to a fear of repeating the experience of the Shoreham plant in New York. Then Governor Cuomo packed the New York PUC with people who were antinuclear. The PUC rules on what the price of the electricity that the plant can charge. The New York PUC ruled that the price for Shoreham-produced electricity should be $0.00 Without a way to earn back the money to build the plant, the utility LILCO was forced into bankruptcy.

If a modern utility executive is going to build a nuclear power plant, he/she is actually playing "you bet your company". The utility can jump through all the hoops the NRC and federal government throw up; but if the state government does something similar to New York's actions; it could be the end of the utility.

However, recent Court rulings in Vermont and elsewhere have confirmed the preemption by federal law; in that states can't treat nuclear plants different than other plants because they are nuclear. The regulation of the nuclear aspect of the plant is at the sole discretion of the NRC. Even so; utility executives are still reluctant to play the "you bet your company game". The federal guarantees are part of the solution to ensure that the Shoreham experience is never repeated.

Both of President Obama's Secretaries of Energy have been Physicists, like myself. Both have told the President that nuclear power is an essential part of the equation for avoiding climatic change due to global warming, without trashing the economy and livelihoods of the citizens. The Vogtle plants applied for this type of guarantee under a law that Congress passed a few years ago. The Vogtle plants qualify under the terms of that law.

Altair_IV
Professor of Physics

I joined a little while back; and have been lurking here and reading for a while. I was wondering what issue to tackle for my first post.

When I saw the above post that promulgated the sorry bit of propaganda from the antinuclear movement; I saw an opportunity to provide some education and insight for those that are still laboring under the misconceptions fostered by the antinuclear movement.

Altair_IV

where have we read that before? LOL

you are easy

It' made by hucksters trying to explain why no one has devoted their resources to commercializing thorium reactors.

The USA's nuclear weapons enterprise has *absolutely no need* for commercial nuclear power reactors, and absolutely *none* of the nuclear material in US nuclear weapons was derived from the commercial sector. The US nuclear weapons enterprise, currently administered by the US Dept. of Energy, and by its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission built specially designed "production reactors" to make nuclear weapons materials at the Hanford site in Washington State and the Savannah River site in South Carolina. Those production reactors at Hanford and Savannah River are responsible for *100%* of the nuclear material in US nuclear weapons.

Where is all the spent fuel from the commercial power reactors? We don't move it; every spent fuel assembly that has been taken out of a commercial power reactor ( save for some for research purposes ) currently resides in either the spent fuel pool or the dry cask storage facility on the site of the reactor that produced it. Since there has been no shipments of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants to the production facilities of the nuclear weapons enterprise; tell me again why nuclear weapons usability entered into the choice of fuel cycle. There's no reason.

Altair_IV

Perhaps you should take it up with them.

and the Manhattan Project enrichment plants never produced fuel for commercial reactors?

and commercial reactor operators never received tax credits for the plutonium they produced?

and no commercial nuclear plants use blended-down HEU?

Do tell.

jpak,

No fissile material that is in US nuclear weapons came from commercial power plants. The same was true for Tritium as well. However, the USA shutdown all its production reactors in 1988 under the Reagan Administration. US nuclear weapons designers required no new fissile material. Any new weapons could use Plutonium scavenged from nuclear weapons that were being retired. So no new fissile material production was necessary.

Tritium is a different story. The production reactors at Savannnah River also made Tritium. The half-life of Plutonium-239, the fissile material in nuclear weapons is 24,100 years. Because of the long half-life, the Plutonium-239 decays very slowly and the decay of Plutonium-239 would not be a problem for a very long time. Tritium however, has a half-life of just 12 years. So in 12 years, one loses half of your Tritium. Therefore, Tritium needs to be continually replenished.

In 1988, the USA had enough Tritium on hand so that it had several years to consider the problem of how to restart Tritium manufacturing. The military wanted the DOE to build a new modern production reactor to supply Tritium in lieu of the old reactors that were shutdown. Another possibility was to have a US Government-owned power reactor generate the Tritium. The choice was left to then President Bill Clinton; and President Clinton decided that rather than spend a lot of money to build a new production reactor; Tritium would be produced by a US Government-owned power reactor, namely the Watts-Bar reactor owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

For many years the US nuclear power fleet got about half of its Uranium fuel from downblended HEU from Russian nuclear weapons as a result of a program called "Megatonnes to Megawatts".

We are discussing whether the operation of nuclear power reactors *enables* the nuclear weapons enterprise. The use of downblended HEU by US power reactors does just the *opposite*. By burning that downblended HEU in nuclear power reactors, that Russian nuclear weapons material was destroyed and turned into useless fission products. The energy that could have obliterated US cities was released slowly and used to power those same cities. So rather than *enabling* nuclear weapons, the use of downblended HEU in nuclear power reactors actually *disabled* the nuclear weapons because it turned bomb fuel into useless fission products. That is a *good* thing. Evidently, that is at variance with jpak's understanding.

Altair_IV

Is it something to be promoted?

jpak,

The only Molten Salt Reactor that has operated in the USA that I'm familiar with is an experimental reactor called the MSRE - Molten Salt Reactor Experiment that was conducted by scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1965 to 1969. The Molten Salt Reactor has many advantages, and some difficulties.

It is a concept that was never fully explored by scientists; and certainly not with modern technology since the national labs have not been working on this concept in any meaningful way for over 4 decades. The Molten Salt Reactor may be a concept whose time has come; but you never know that unless you do the science, and we've allowed that to lapse for over 4 decades.

There are other viable advance reactor concepts. In my capacity as an MIT Professor of Physics, I have also served as a "grey beard"; a senior scientist that is called upon to review ongoing research programs. In that capacity, I have been on the review board for Argonne National Laboratory, and was most impressed with their research into the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) during the '80s and early '90s under the direction of a very gifted nuclear physicist by the name of Dr. Charles Till. It really was a shame that this very impressive program that accomplished so much was terminated for parochial political interests.

Altair_IV

who have worked at Argonne and Lawrence.

lol

jpak,

I did not say that I "worked" at either Argonne nor Lawrence Livermore.

My employer was MIT.

However, University Professors are often called in by the Government and Cabinet Departments as advisors. In that capacity, I didn't work for either Argonne nor Lawrence Livermore. I was a consultant to the Dept of Energy, and it was the Dept of Energy that paid my expenses in return for my assessment of what their labs were doing and the quality of the work.

That doesn't mean I "worked" for either lab; I worked for DOE.

I don't know why that should be considered funny; it's done all the time.

Altair_IV

It's more the part where, so far, three different DU usernames (one TSed) have been associated with people claiming various permutations of affiliations with the same set of institutions as part of their impressive qualifications.

The humor is like the knowing snickering of an older child at the efforts of a parent, in answer to questions from a younger sibling, to deny the provenance of gifts from Santa Claus.

maybe its they're being re-invented, not sure which.
Actually this one was easy

Hey, we all need to be edumacated whether we want to be or not

of one

Jet Li fights himself! He wins and loses at the same time!

We could call it "Nuclear Free-Free."

TerraPower = Bill Gates' nuclear power company.

Seems like most of their money is coming from Silicon Valley.