Ukraine Wants to Produce Own Nuclear Fuel

[NNadir]

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said Friday that his country should produce its own nuclear fuel for power plants, part of the West-leaning leader's effort to reduce its reliance on Russia following a dispute over natural gas prices.

"We must change our uranium policy — our policy on the use of uranium for peaceful purposes," Yushchenko said on national television. "We must cooperate with international allies on a serious political and economic level so that we can have a full cycle of processing and production of nuclear fuel."...

...Ukraine is the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 explosion and fire at a reactor at the Chernobyl plant, which has been shut for good. Nearly two decades later, the nation of 47 million relies on four operating nuclear power plants for about half its electricity production — and it depends on Russia for fuel that feeds them.

Ukraine supplies Russia with raw uranium, then buys it back after enrichment; a full nuclear cycle means that Ukraine would be enriching uranium by itself. Uranium enrichment is a possible pathway to the development of nuclear arms, but Yushchenko insisted his country — a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog — had only peaceful intentions...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060114/ap_on_re_eu/ukraine_nuclear_energy

[Deja Q]

1. Enrichment... wouldn't that resolve the problem of nuclear waste, and

its subsequent problems?

Of course, that would also end profitability in that industry...

Humans and money... sigh. They will kill their own species (and every other) just to make a buck.

[NNadir]

2. The Ukranians are simply reviewing their relationship with Russia.

They are having a profound economic dispute with Russia over the very dangerous fossil fuel, natural gas.

The Ukraine is in terrible straights with respect to energy. Many thousands of coal miners have been killed in that country in the last decades, and the coal that is mined is of very poor quality.

To address this concern, the Ukraine plans to build two new nuclear reactors, in addition to the 15 now operating there. Since the fuel they purchase for their reactors comes from Russia, they wish to avoid a repeat of the natural gas situation.

The Ukraine has renounced nuclear weapons. Upon achieving independence the nation ordered the many thousands of weapons located there out of the country. They were placed in Russian hands. Some of these weapons have been dismantled and the cores have been used to fuel nuclear reactors.

[Odin2005]

3. Unlike Iran...

...Ukraine can be trusted with using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, more power to them.

[NNadir]

4. In reality though, the world doesn't need more enrichment facilities.

The existing facilities are sufficient for current world demand.

This dispute is political and not technical.

In the next several decades, should humanity survive global climate change, which is most likely only possible with the large scale expansion of nuclear power, the world will be forced to move away from enrichment to recycling technologies, ideally the thorium cycle.


There are, as I frequently point out, risks associated with nuclear technology. Simply because nuclear energy is risk minimized does not mean that it is risk free. It is possible to use uranium enrichment technology to produce nuclear weapons. In fact most nuclear armed states have used exactly this technology to construct at least a fraction of their weapons.

To my mind, the biggest risk associated with nuclear technology is the is represented by the misapplication of isotope separation technology for construction of nuclear weapons. Like the IAEA, I am very concerned about inspection free isotopic separations in Iran for instance. I regard the "threat" of nuclear terrorists as highly improbable, perhaps, bordering on the absurd, but it is not a trivial matter to prevent determined states from making nuclear weapons. For this reason, all isotopic enrichment facilities worldwide need to be under IAEA supervision. Of course, nuclear weapons have not been used on population centers since 1945, and thus their risk is small. However the risk should be nonexistent. All nuclear weapons should be dismantled, everywhere they exist.

The construction and maintenance of nuclear weapons is an expensive proposition and it is unconscionable that any nation diverts resources to make them, particularly in a time of such exigent challenges as we now experience. The adoption of the thorium cycle - which is NOT enrichment dependent - raises the costs associated with the production of nuclear weapons, particularly those based on plutonium. However even existent isolated uranium can be rendered less prone to nuclear diversion through use of the thorium cycle - and the blending of recycled uranium into existing stockpiles.