1) U-235 enrichment
2) Small, short-cycle research reactor
3) Commercial LWR on short cycle with PUREX
4) Fast Breeder with PUREX
5) IFR with pyroprocessing or Th-cycle LFTRs

Why would any nation state go beyond step 2? As I understand it, no one has made it to step 3 since the 1950s (Russia was using graphite-moderated reactors like Chernobyl, not LWRs, to fulfil a dual Pu-breeding/power supply role). With IFRs, you’d never build a PUREX plant. Indeed, I would be delighted if we got rid of all existing PUREX plants as soon as possible — beyond the potential proliferation concern, it wastes Pu in MOX that would be better used as start charges for IFRs or LFTRs.

Most of us are troubled by the idea of any weapon that has the potential to harm humans that are not merely not party to a conflict at the time, “collateral damage” is part of every military conflict. but in time windows far removed from the actual conflict. The use of defoliants in Indochina for example is still showing up years after the conflict ceased. Ideally then we’d like to remove both these weapons and the possibility of creating them as soon as possible. That’s a given but the world is a far more complex place than that.

With or without nuclear power all sorts of states will put their hands on these and other horrific weapons — pathological agents and chemicals come to mind. No amount of blocking of nuclear power will prevent that. Most troubling is the idea that unstable or failed states might acquire them because that’s a short step to them being placed into the hands of people who unlike for example North Korea feel as if they could use them symbolically on a target populace without consequences they’d bother about.

But the trouble is that in none of the places where nuclear weapons exist is there any likelihood that the regime will permanently dismantle them — the genie can;’t be put back into the bottle. The US and the UK and France and Russia and China are not going to do that, even though nuclear weapons are probably useless to them. Conventional weapons can do quite as much damage when it counts and are much more likely in practice to be actually used. A weapon your own populace thinks is evil is not very useful. You can’t really threaten anyone with it.

Where a nuclear weapon is useful is in the hands of a state that

a) might well use it
b) is known to be capable of delivering it against a more powerful and foreseeable enemy
c) has only limited time and opportunity to stage a sustained attack

North Korea, left with purely conventional weapons and delivery systems would not last 5 days in a shooting war with any significant power nor could it acquire the assets to do so in any timeframe that is meaningful. If it is to maintain sovereignty it needs a trump — and that is a nuclear weapon. Ditto Iran and Pakistan and Israel at least to some extent. Of course, once you use it, all the advantage is gone because the power you use it against, if it is not devastated — and it probably won’t be will exact military restitution without let or hindrance. So in practice even the small state can’t actually use the weapon. All it can really do is look nutty enough to keep its enemies guessing.

It’s worth observing that if Saddam really had had deliverable nuclear weapons in 2003 there would probably have been no Iraq War escalation in that year. Perhaps 600,000 fewer Iraqis and about 6000 or so coalition forces would have died and there’d have been fewer injuries too. Indeed the whole scenario from 1991 would have been less bad. Bush probably wouldn’t have been re-elected in 04. Nuclear weapons may well have stopped India and Pakistan going to war in 1999.

Does that mean the situation is healthier with nukes? Of course not. But as we are unwilling or unable to take the steps needed to deprive those who have them of the weapons, one can look on the bright side. It could be worse. But whatever it is, it has little to do with nuclear power. Thatcher clearly wanted nuclear power so that she could get materiel for Trident rather than seeing Trident as a spin off from nukes. She also wanted to smash the miners’ union who’d destroyed Heath in 1974. But Trident was key. It still is. Blair and Brown are renewing. Rather than fussing about nuclear power we ought to be asking why the hell they want nuclear missiles and whom they are planning to use them on.

One final observation. Small states really ought not to be spending large sums on defence. Nukes are a lot cheaper than having having a massive army which in some cases, is going to be used mainly or repress the populace in a way that a nuke can’t. One could argue that if nukes aren’t used and if they keep the peace and if small states don’t spend up big on armies then nukes might be the lesser evil, given that we aren’t about to invade and seize them. North Korea has a large army anyway, but one can certainly imagine a small state that wasn’t repressive –Nicaragua in 1979, Bolivia today for example — and one could think of others — who might simply want not to be attacked but not spend up on maintaining a huge army and air force. Please understand — I’m not endorsing them getting nukes — but as I can’t stop them I can understand them thinking it might be the best option.

The alternative is not banning nuclear power but forcibly depriving states who have them from keeping them and essentially occupying them to prevent programs being reinstated. The US would have to occupy Pakistan and Israel and India and China and talk the other powers into giving them up and doing the occupation. I don’t see that as a saleable proposition. Pakistan? Maybe but not the rest. It would be better to do it cooperatively, as tricky as that is. In the case of Pakistan, DPRK and Israel, you probably have to resolve internal conflicts first. Maybe you could tempt them to use less proliferation-ready technology or offer them cash to design solar thermal instead — though in DPRKs and Israel’s case, it seems doubtful. The question is existential.

Apologies for not responding sooner.

Could you refer directly to the post you’re talking about, so I can discern the context of the comment?

I realise also that I should apologise for the “Weapons of war remark” as this is inflammatory and unnecessary. Sometimes it gets the better of me as well.

As to fanciful I refer to your suggestion in earlier posts that the solution to the world’s problems is to ‘simply’ rollout thousands of nuclear reactors as if energy was the only problem we have, quite apart from the resources needed to bring all the world’s population to our standard of living.

Still waiting on Gloor’s explanation concerning his “fanciful” remark…

Obviously I touched a nerve and if so I apologise.

And I too wish to apologise. I’m sorry I posted that. I should not have been carried away by emotion to that extent, and should have engaged you with rational discussion without resorting to such language.

The problem is that I cannot seperate nuclear power from nuclear weapons. If you are able to do this then so be it however the facts of India, Pakistan, Isreal, North Korea and South Africa all using civilian nuclear power to produce nuclear weapons. None of these countries would have traded anything for this capability as they thought they needed it to protect their homelands.

Do the North Koreans even pretend to have a civilian nuclear power program? I thought that they’d always been up front about the military nature of their program.

At any rate, it hardly matters. Any moderately industrialised nation which desires nuclear weapons can develop them if they feel they absolutely must have them. This issue has nothing to do with civilian power generation one way or the other, and should not enter into discussions about civilian nuclear power.

I was not actually attacking nuclear power production at all – I was attacking the premise in P4TP that a country would willingly trade unlimited power for giving up control of their nuclear power in a system like GREAT. I simply pointed out that as these countries really wanted nuclear weapons and used civilian nuclear power as a smokescreen they would have stayed out of GREAT as much as the stayed out of the NPT.

Really? Then you should have clarified that more fully rather than coming out with a statement like “Nuclear power is primarily a weapon of war with civilian nuclear reactors only a spin off from weapons research”.

Also given your fanciful suggestions as to the possible rollout of nuclear power I consider my restraint quite good by not replying in kind.

Fanciful? What do you mean?

Obviously I touched a nerve and if so I apologise.

The problem is that I cannot seperate nuclear power from nuclear weapons. If you are able to do this then so be it however the facts of India, Pakistan, Isreal, North Korea and South Africa all using civilian nuclear power to produce nuclear weapons. None of these countries would have traded anything for this capability as they thought they needed it to protect their homelands.

I was not actually attacking nuclear power production at all – I was attacking the premise in P4TP that a country would willingly trade unlimited power for giving up control of their nuclear power in a system like GREAT. I simply pointed out that as these countries really wanted nuclear weapons and used civilian nuclear power as a smokescreen they would have stayed out of GREAT as much as the stayed out of the NPT.

Also given your fanciful suggestions as to the possible rollout of nuclear power I consider my restraint quite good by not replying in kind.

You arsehole.

You have had more than enough opportunity (by far!) to identify, recognise and publicise the various failings you percieve to arise from the operation of nuclear power plants. I have witnessed you taking apart nomscientific AGW denialist bullshit in a manner that indicates you know full well what you are taliking about, and I have seem you use the flimsiest of arguments to support any attack on nuclear power production.

You are not stupid. You know full well what you are trying to do.

OR we could use the electric cars that are just coming onto the market now that don’t need nuclear power as you seem to think. V2G will help renewables with batteries the utilities can rent rather than buy. Ammonia is an appalling choice for a widespread fuel. Imagine the consequences of even a small spill.

“As for GREAT, several people have told me they think it’s politically naive”

Which is what I thought too. There is no explanation of how such an agreement would be reached. Considering the pathetic response to climate change with all the bickering and self interest groups demanding a place at the trough GREAT is an order of magnitude more difficult problem to implement.

“Saying GREAT is a lame idea based on Iran’s refusal to eschew uranium enrichment is just bogus.”

Is it? If your premise for the start of GREAT is correct or even workable an indication would be that powers that want nuclear power for ‘peaceful’ purposes should jump at the chance to get nuclear fuel. Iran has a major power shortage as it wants to generate as much revenue as possible from oil and gas and it has a significant and rising internal demand for energy. Nuclear energy for them is heating in their cold winter allowing more exports of gas. They could have their nuclear reactor sanction free with nuclear fuel from Russia and are turning down cheaper and ‘unlimited’ energy from nuclear power so they can also produce nuclear weapons to counter their perceived threat from Israel and the USA/Britain. I would say that almost every such state would do the same thing even if offered unlimited energy from GREAT. Nuclear power is primarily a weapon of war with civilian nuclear reactors only a spin off from weapons research.

South Australia must build a nuclear power plant says expert

CLARE PEDDIE, SCIENCE REPORTER
July 06, 2009 03:08pm
SOUTH Australia must build a nuclear power station within the next 10 years, says the state’s top expert on climate change.

At the State Government’s Adapting to Climate Change Forum in Adelaide today, Professor Barry Brook said we should aim to build a “fast reactor” in 10 years to provide “a strong, consistent baseload energy source for the future” – or fail in our attempts to avert dangerous climate change

“We have to start that process now, or we’ll find in 10 years time we’re way behind where we wanted to be,” he said.

“There is no time to lose.”

Professor Brook said fast reactors had “huge potential” to supply “enough energy for millions of years” because they burned up to 99 per cent of the nuclear fuel, leaving only a small amount of relatively short-lived waste.

Fast reactors could even run on the radioactive waste produced by conventional nuclear power plants, solving the problem of what to do with spent fuel rods.

“It’s a winning scenario,” he said.

“And the other thing that turned me was that I’m really worried that we can’t do it on renewables. It’s a choice of failing, or having a much better chance of succeeding.”

Renewable energy such as solar, geothermal and wind power would not replace coal and gas-fired electricity in the short term, he said. And the demand for energy would continue to rise.

Electric cars obviously can be part of the vehicle power solution. Again, we need nuclear for that.

As for GREAT, several people have told me they think it’s politically naive, but there are some very highly-placed individuals in government who think it’s a very viable idea, even a necessary one. I don’t claim that the way I present it in P4TP is how it will look in its final form. I only present it as a way of showing how we can both manage fissile material while internationalizing IFRs and maintain the ultimate in safety and economy for consumers of electricity by taking out the profit motive of plant operators (the builders of the IFR plants would still make money hand over fist). Such a system would also assure the inclusion of the very poor nations in the electrical build-out, where otherwise they might well be frozen out for a long time.

Saying GREAT is a lame idea based on Iran’s refusal to eschew uranium enrichment is just bogus. Iran isn’t being offered anything remotely like GREAT as an alternative. Even with a new name, Ender, your arguments are really weak.

Yes, that is one of the implications of replacing coal with nuclear. It can\’t be done everywhere, and the reactor type has to be matched to the temperature of the coal burner, but in principle it\’s quite possible. See here for a masterplan:

http://www.coal2nuclear.com/

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_carbon.html

I don’t agree with everything, but some strong points are made about the reality of the current situation. Caveat: the author clearly doesn’t know about IFR.

I’m still none the wiser as to the design of a boron pellet eating engine. Is it an external combustion engine like a steam train? Some sort of Stirling cycle? How do pellets move into and ash move out of the combustion chamber? And there’s that oxygen separator …

So far I’ve only seen the argument on the basis of the free energy content of the fuel in combustion. There’s a lot of things you can burn. I’m interested in seeing the system that converts that energy into mechanical work. So far, it seems, the ORNL guys have just burnt their materials and have yet to produce a system that produces mechanical work.

Nice twist on my metaphor, Graham ;)