Yeah, 20000x more radioactive than CANDU SNF is going to make my Prof.’s bathtub separation system more than a little difficult, and might lead him to get CANDU feed material rather than IFR. What you say about nation-states is my real concern. (I usually, and rightfully, laugh off concerns about terrorists sneaking into nuclear plants, carefully stealing from the spent-fuel pool, loading material onto trucks or trains, taking it off to their top secret $40 billion reprocessing facility, and making bombs out of it before anyone noticed. ) It’s the industrialized non-weapons states that worry me. Perhaps they would find easier ways, but if I had a few of these and decided I wanted weapons quickly, I’d probably go build an aqueous plant and take some of this crazy-radioactive stuff on over there. Even a fizzle can give one some headlines and money (see N. Korea).

But, the more I think about it, building an aqueous plant across the street and getting reactor grade plutonium could be done with any reactor technology (or weapons grade U233 with Th). So if the economics do end up working out, and if what you all say about getting plutonium out of IFRs with simple modifications being impossible, I guess I don’t see #1 as such a huge problem.

The previous post is relevant though. If China, Russia, USA, France, England, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Israel built these things like crazy, I bet coal demand could go down quite a lot.

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/100013015/group/Opinion/

1. As the coal2nuclear site notes, the existence of the balance of plant, access to the plant via rail, river/canal, roads *already exists*.

2. Cooling water or tower facilities *and licensing* already in place.

3. Access to grid in place.

4. Laydown area for construction, already place

5. We turn ON the nuke, we turn OFF the coal and this is a hugely visual metaphor for many people and, I should add, something that cannot seriously be repeated with renewables.

Compared to the physical and technical challenges associated with capturing CO2 from flue gas, compressing it, transporting it to a suitable geologic formation, isolating it underground and then monitoring the reservoir to ensure that it is not leaking and does not have any potential for a rapid release of the stored product, I think that coal to nuclear is a far more solid path for a zero emission power source that takes advantage of existing infrastructure.

In one case, you almost have to do what I call “violating God’s law” in the other case you may have to change manmade laws. I am pretty confident that changing human origin rules – as hard as it can be – is easier than changing rules found in a physics book.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast

Electrolytic separation is a bit of a blunt instrument. The standard reduction potentials for the transuranics are roughly U -0.1 V, Np -0.3V, Pu -1.2V, Am -0.9V and Cm -1.2V. Add to that some random overpotentials from cell design and operation and it looks like you can probably separate U and Np from Pu and the higher actinides, but I don’t think you could separate Pu from Am or Cm – the reduction potentials are right on top of each other.

(Those are aqueous SRPs, not molten salt, but those values would till tell the same story.)

The resulting mix of Pu and higher elements is hot – thermally and radioactivity. The difficulty the heat problem poses to weapons designers is described in this 2004 paper:

Purex and Pyro are not the Same

The difficulty the bathtub separator has in chemically separating the plutonium can be inferred from some estimates from GRL Cowan (who I quoted back here):

” .. a CANDU fuel bundle, ten years after its retirement, can give a lethal radiation dose from 1 metre’s distance in 12 hours ..

Adding in the estimated ten times greater burnup and we get the ashes in IFR fuel, just before they are removed from it, making it ~20000 times more radioactive than the ashes in CANDU fuel after ten years.

In terms of foiling a theft attempt, this 20000 is bound to be a slight underestimate, because the radiation from fast-decaying isotopes is more penetrating, less likely to be absorbed within the fuel itself. So dividing the 12 hours by 20000 gives us a conservative estimate of how quick the supposed thief, having neglected to bring a 50-tonne self-propelled shielding flask, will decide to sit down for a little rest, and never get up again: two seconds. Whoa, I hadn’t known it was that quick.”

Turning IFR fuel into a bomb would require nation state capability in handling and reprocessing. The only entities that have that capability already either have the bomb or could build one by easier routes.

I saw your site first the first time the other day, too. I think what you’re doing is great.

I agree with you ” the regulatory issues that would attend any coal-to-nuclear conversion would be staggering”.

But I am enjoying what I have read so far of his draft book that he has posted on the internet 3 days ago.

I like your bio, too! Very sane.

I suspect that the only way that this could be done effectively would be to brownfield the old plant (perhaps saving the switchyard) and build the NPP new, preferably by dropping in a modular plant. This would actually be easer than for most sites as a coal plant ether has a railhead or a fair sized port on the property, previously used to ship in fuel.

I stand corrected on the voltage comment. Chemistry was a while ago. The essence of my point is exactly as Prof. Per Peterson points out — that Plutonium is chemically separable from other actinides somehow. So, now the bad guys have to get a vat of acid and work the PUREX process (that’s right, my chemistry class showed that PUREX only requires 1 vat of acid as equipment ;). For the sake of argument, I typically take one of my favorite professor’s hyperbolic statement: “There’s nothing you can do to Plutonium that I can’t undo in my bathtub.” His tub should require lots of expensive equipment, chemistry, and shielding, but the essential shortcoming is undeniably valid and therefore should be acknowledged in such a presentation.

I absolutely agree with Dr. Yoo Chang that no nuclear options is proliferation-proof and that safeguardability is key. This is one of the disadvantages inherent to nuclear power and we as activists must work together to explain that we can set up systems to monitor and protect these reactors and this material. (Ideally, this wouldn’t involve the IDF.) One of the most potent arguments against nuclear right now is proliferation so if we don’t treat it thoroughly, our passions and dreams are out of luck.

And as for my questioning the absolute statements, various other reactor designs can theoretically do the deed, but certainly none of them have had as much research and work done as the IFR, at least not in the USA. A massive deployment of plug-in hybrids cars with smart-grid give-back capabilities integrates a lot of intermittency out of the renewables. Good carbon capture and storage would count.

Just the statement “save the world” is what I’m frowning most upon. This invokes the timeless apocalyptic emotions that lead to hysteria and poor decisions. First of all, the world lived through the impact of a 1km asteroid, or something similar. Sure the dinosaurs died but life and the earth were A-OK. So at least change the statement to “save humanity.” More seriously, any truly elegant, cheap, and harmonious technology should come into operation naturally, without needing to hold worldwide doom over everyone’s head. Most of us here know that nuclear power has the potential to be these things, especially through some form of breeding. The IFR, is an excellent step towards these ideals and will certainly be built by the wise winds of time. And some engineers.