U.S.-Russian plutonium deal founders

[struggle4progress]

By H. JOSEF HEBERT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- ... The program got under way with great fanfare in 2000 as an "unprecedented" initiative to curb nuclear nonproliferation. The U.S. and Russia would work on parallel tracks to take the plutonium from warheads, blend it with uranium so it can be burned in commercial power-producing light-water reactors.

The amount was a fraction of the militaries' plutonium stockpiles. While exact numbers are classified, the United States is believed to have about 100 metric tons and Russia about 145 metric tons ...

Russian officials said this year they no longer were interested in turning the plutonium into the mixed-oxide fuel, but wanted to burn the plutonium in a type of reactor that, under some conditions, can produce more plutonium than it burns.

Meanwhile, the estimated cost of the proposed U.S. conversion plant in South Carolina has jumped from $1 billion to $4.7 billion, and a second plant needed to take apart the plutonium pits removed from warheads has grown to $2 billion, four times what it was projected to cost five years ago, according to a House committee monitoring the program ...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151AP_Russian_Plutonium.html

[jpak]

1. Cost overruns >400 % ?????

$6.7 billion is just the beginning.

The DOE has to PAY nuclear plant operators millions of dollars to modify their reactors to use relatively small amounts of MOX fuel.

Does irradiation in a light water react eliminate this plutonium???

Nope...

It reduces the amount by ~15% and the rest has to be disposed of at great expense (more billions and more cost overruns).

The cheapest, fastest, safest and most secure method of disposing Pu pits is incorporating this material into a ceramic matrix and burial.

But don't tell that to ChimpCo and the pronucular crowd...

[NNadir]

2. It doesn't matter where this plutonium passes through a reactor, so long

as it does pass through a reactor.

It must have its isotopic compostion changed and there is really just one way to do that, run it through a reactor.

The Russian contention that plutonium, including weapons plutonium, is a resource goes back to the earliest disarmament negotiations. They have a point, since 250 metric tons of plutonium represents 19 exajoules of energy, about 4% of the annual energy demand of the entire planet from all forms of energy, coal, oil, gas combined. Put another way, burning this plutonium could meet the entire planetary energy demand for about half a month.

From a purely technical standpoint, this plutonium does offer significant breeding capacity, allowing for the production of more plutonium, and even better, isotopically denatured plutonium or better, U-233 from thorium.

In any case, plutonium pits for nuclear weapons wherever they exist on earth must be chemically dissolved from their machined form. They should be separated from the gallium, and ideally processed in reactors so as to make access to them far more difficult.

Personally if I were the Russians, I wouldn't deal too much with the United States on ths issue either. The deal was negotiated by the Clinton administration, which was sane. Putin, not an especially nice guy himself, just sat in a room with Bush. Clearly from the amount of open ridicule Putin laid on Bush, Putin holds Bush in contempt. On this alone, Mr. Putin and I agree. I don't like Putin; I don't trust him; but I think he is sane enough to know that Russia has nothing to gain anymore by a partnership with the US on any issue, especially one involving the handling of important nuclear materials. The Bushies are clearly liars and everyone on earth is now aware of this fact. I certainly do not trust the Bushies with weapons grade plutonium.

In fact, I don't believe that weapons grade plutonium should exist anywhere, which is part of the reason I so vocally support nuclear power.

Of course, I know what the intent of this thread is, which is to promote the Greenpeace perspective on weapons grade plutonium, which is just to hold one's infantile breath, until all the infants in question fall down after turning blue, upon which the plutonium will just magically go away or turn into magic solar cells.

However, this weapons grade plutonium exists. The best we can do with it is to transform it into reactor grade plutonium. The best solution for it is the old adage of swords into ploughshares. It will be as true in 2000 years as it is true today: There is effectively only one way to destroy plutonium, which is to fission it.

As opposed to the Greenpeace perspective, sane people want the plutonium run through a reactor, all 250 metric tons of it, that covered by treaty and that still in weapons pits and as yet uncovered by any treaty. Sane nations have taken a close look at how to manage their plutonium inventories, and what forms it should take.

Here is just one blurb out of many tens of thousands, on some sane plutonium management approaches:

http://www.cea.fr/gb/publications/Clefs46/pagesg/clefs46_36.html

France is weighing stabilizing its plutonium inventories at about 400 metric tons, with the plutonium having an isotopic distribution that contains less than 40% Pu-239 as opposed to weapons plutonium which has (typically) an isotopic purity of >90% Pu-239. This is an excellent risk minimized approach and allows for the commercial advantages of plutonium without much of the weapons risk. Multi-fuel cycles of the CORAIL type and CONFU type are very promising and sane people hope that all weapons plutonium will end up in the types of inventory that such fuel cycles will create.

Many of these cycles will actually reduce the radiotoxicity of the planet more than would have been the case if uranium ores were simply left in place. It will take about one millenium to accomplish this. Of course, if nuclear reactors do not run on this planet for a millenium, there is a distinct possibility that humans will not exist.

A graphic demonstration of this fact is given on slide 16 of this presentation:

http://aaa.nevada.edu/pdffiles/Microsoft%20PowerPoint%20-%20Safa.pdf

[jpak]

3. The hated Greenpeace view? Guess again.

The US-RU plutonium decommissioning program was developed by the hated Clinton regime.

Clinton's DOE concluded that blend down, matrix incorporation and geological isolation was the the best strategy to deal with weapons-grade Pu.

The pronuclear Gingrich Congress, however, had other ideas. They forced the DOE to use the half of the US Pu stockpile produce MOX fuel.

It was also no coincidence that the MOX fuel fabrication plants were sited in (Deep Red) South Carolina - can you say Republican boondoggle????

ChimpCo's DOE did away with the hated Greenpeace/Clinton plan for blend-down/geological disposal and now ALL weapons-grade Pu will be used to produce MOX fuel.

Extracting Pu from hot highly radioactive spent MOX fuel is far far more expensive than blending down unadulterated Pu pits, and produces a lot of high level liquid waste to boot.

And who cares if it costs a few billion more for a GOP connected contractor to do it that way???

At least it's not the hated Greenpeace way...