[ale] OT: Nuc reactors and Japan

[Jim Kinney]

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Pat Regan <thehead at patshead.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 6 May 2011 09:26:10 -0400
> scott <scott at sboss.net> wrote:
>
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S
> >
> > that talks about the Salt-Based nuclear reactors.
>
> Someone more knowledgeable than me could tell me if I'm correct about
> this.
>
> I'm under the impression that one of the primary functions of many of
> our reactors is that they can can be used to generate weapons grade
> materials.  I don't know if that is only true of only our very early
> reactors, though.
>

It greatly depends on the reactor design. Some (breeder reactors) generate
plutonium which (in theory) can be used to fuel the same reactor that
created it. It also provides a steady stream of Pu for weapons uses. All of
the breeder reactors are outside commercial realms.

Most commercial reactors "burn" an enriched uranium and produce no plutonium
but lots of other "stuff" most of which is quite hot and short lived but
some is very slow to decay. Almost all commercial reactors can't be used to
make plutonium. A very few, because of their age in the design process, can
be mishandled to produce some amounts of plutonium.

All of stuff that comes out of a reactor must still be processed to become
"weapons grade" anything. Most of the stuff is not usable as it is already
decayed to a stable state. So centrifuges must be used (there are certainly
other methods now - not my area) to concentrate the hot from the cold
material.

However, the "sludge" is a nasty mix of radioactive materials that cover
20-30 elements on the periodic table. Some have uses in nuclear medicine, a
few others are used in some specialty process (smoke detectors us Americum)
but the rest is useless and nasty hot for centuries.

I want a GIANT trebuchet to take small blobs of nasty and lob it back into
the sun on a daily/weekly basis. :-)

>
> Pat
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>



-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
- *2011 Noam Chomsky*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20110506/f0001e9b/attachment-0001.html