US nuclear recycling plans raise proliferation risks

[jpak]

http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/nuclear/mg19826593.400-us-nuclear-recycling-plans-raise-proliferation-risks.html

IF YOU can't innovate, then reinvent the wheel. That seems to be the thinking behind the US Department of Energy's (DoE) plans for a nuclear fuel reprocessing programme - but this tactic may play into the hands of weapons-makers.

<snip>

Then in 2006, the DoE announced plans to build a plant to test reprocessing technology that would both significantly reduce the amount of nuclear waste and keep the plutonium mixed in with other radioactive materials. Critics, however, argued that technology to do this didn't exist.

Now it seems the DoE has backtracked on its original plans and is using a separated plutonium technology similar to that used by Japan, France and Russia, according to an independent report by the US Government Accountability Office. "If mitigating proliferation risks and waste reduction are their goals, we think they should reassess their approach, says GAO researcher Daniel Feehan.

<not much more>

[NNadir]

1. In spite of lots of dumb fundie talk about nuclear proliferation, ZERO fundie anti-nukes

have called for banning refineries because they raise the risk of napalm manufacture.

There is NOT ONE fundie anti-nuke who has called for the banning of dangerous fossil fuels even though oil is often diverted to make tank fuel and jet fuel for bombers.

In spite of 50 years of trying to connect nuclear power to nuclear weapons, there have been ZERO nuclear wars since 1946.

The number of dangerous fossil fuel wars since 1946 is NOT ZERO, but our fundies couldn't live without selective attention.

[razors edge]

2. Non-proliferation is just chin music.

Heavy Water Cheaters
By Gary Milhollin

Foreign Policy
Winter 1987-1988, p. 100-119
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/pubs/articles/1987/heavywatercheaters.htm

Civilian nuclear exports are founded on two assumptions: No country will export a crucial item without requiring a pledge of peaceful use or use an item imported under such a pledge to make bombs. The same nuclear reaction that makes electricity makes weapons; the importer's pledge is the only barrier between the two. If countries receiving nuclear imports could freely convert them to arms, the nuclear exporting countries simply would be spreading atomic bomb factories across the world. The human race's prospects for controlling nuclear weapons would fall rapidly, and so would its chance of survival. To prevent proliferation, the supplier countries routinely re-quire two guarantees—a pledge of peaceful use and inspection of exported material, equipment, and technology. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is based in Vienna and comprises more than 100 member states, conducts the inspections.

It now appears—for the first time in history--that a country has broken the peaceful-use pledge. It also appears that a second country may have broken it, that a third is threatening to break it, and that the civilian exports of a fourth—possibly made without the pledge—have gone freely into bombs. The culprits are, respectively, Israel, France, India, and Norway. Israel has been making plutonium with Norwegian heavy water for more than 20 years and, according to recent evidence, putting the plutonium into bombs; India has been making plutonium with U.S. heavy water for about the same period and is threatening to put that plutonium into bombs. Norway has exported heavy water that France has used to build a thermonuclear arsenal. If these countries can undermine the pledge and avoid the consequences, there is no reason why others will not do the same.


Edit: Long read, one to avoid if you have ever had thoughts of suicide. I almost wish I never read the whole damed thing, knowing it was twenty years old to begin with.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Not your best anti-nuclear headliner

The article contains no substantive information.

The critical link dead-ends.

The link to the GAO report is probably something you wouldn't want people to read, since it doesn't demonize nuclear technology.

--p!