Why I advocate for Nuclear Power

[bilby]

The danger of spent uranium munitions has nothing to do with radiation. The problem is with the chemical properties of uranium, and those never go away no matter what the half life of a particular isotope,

Um, I'm confused.
The whole point of half-life is that the material stops being uranium. Is it still chemically Uranium after it has turned into the daughter products?

Although the U235 (the radioactive uranium isotope) does decay into byproducts, there are other uranium isotopes in fuel rods such as U238 (a non-radioactive uranium isotope). This U238 is the uranium that is used effectively in kinetic weapons because it has greater mass than lead. The primary danger to humans this has (other than the impact ) is heavy metal poisoning like lead and other heavy metals.

Nobody has ever sourced DU from used reactor fuel. It's a byproduct of nuclear bomb making.

Nuclear power has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, and hasn't had since the early 1950s. Modern power reactors are no good for making weapons grade plutonium; And nobody needs to make plutonium anymore anyway, as there is a huge glut of the stuff since the end of the Cold War. One side benefit of some new power reactor designs is that they can use up some of that excess Pu, so effectively the military will pay you to take fuel off their hands.

Both weapons grade and depleted uranium are made in centrifuges, not reactors (and certainly not power reactors).

Korea is a good example of the complete disconnect between nuclear power and nuclear weapons - The South Koreans have lots of nuclear power and no nuclear weapons; And the North has the exact opposite. One simply does not imply the other - the conflation of the two is a propaganda excercise by the anti-nuclear power lobby.

Can we stop discussing weapons now? The subject of the thread is nuclear POWER.

If I started a thread about the relative merits of gasoline vehicles versus electric vehicles, would we be discussing napalm or the electric chair?

 

[whollygoats]

Okay....If that is the case, then why is it that the disposal of the spent fuel rods from functioning nuclear generation facilities was, and I presume, still is, such a butthurt?

Yucca Mountain is a dead letter, I understand.

 

[bilby]

Okay....If that is the case, then why is it that the disposal of the spent fuel rods from functioning nuclear generation facilities was, and I presume, still is, such a butthurt?

Yucca Mountain is a dead letter, I understand.

The handling of spent nuclear fuel is not in any way problematic.

https://thoughtscapism.com/2017/11/04/nuclear-waste-ideas-vs-reality/

The only 'problem' is that lots of people put a lot of effort into persuading people that there's a problem.

They are either lying or misinformed.

Nuclear waste is a problem in the same way that the second coming of Jesus is a problem - strictly for belivers only.

Yucca Mountain was never needed; It was a futile attempt to make something that was already safe, safe enough for people who will never be satisfied by any level of safety.

In the sixty years that the industry has existed, nobody has been harmed by spent nuclear fuel.

https://nuclear.duke-energy.com/2016/10/05/the-facts-about-used-nuclear-fuel

Spent fuel is ceramic pellets. It's not inclined to move or 'leak', and just needs a few inches of concrete to protect it from direct contact. It's dangerous in the way that a recently cast lump of iron is dangerous - it will burn you if you get realy close without protection, but all you need to stay safe is to stay away. It's less hazardous than the waste routinely dumped into the environment by other industries, including coal power plants.

And unlike any other industry, nuclear power takes responsibility for it, and looks after it.

Waste is a problem for every industry, except nuclear power, where the problems have actually been addressed and solved.

 

[skepticalbip]

Okay....If that is the case, then why is it that the disposal of the spent fuel rods from functioning nuclear generation facilities was, and I presume, still is, such a butthurt?

Yucca Mountain is a dead letter, I understand.

I haven't heard that the spent fuel rods are disposed of. My understanding is that they need temporary storage until they can be reprocessed. Even this "problem" would be minimized if regulations allowed for the use of breeder reactors.

 

[bilby]

Okay....If that is the case, then why is it that the disposal of the spent fuel rods from functioning nuclear generation facilities was, and I presume, still is, such a butthurt?

Yucca Mountain is a dead letter, I understand.

I haven't heard that the spent fuel rods are disposed of. My understanding is that they need temporary storage until they can be reprocessed. Even this "problem" would be minimized if regulations allowed for the use of breeder reactors.

Nothing is 'disposed of'; We can store stuff, recycle stuff, or spread stuff around our environment. Most industries choose the latter; Nuclear power does the former, and some recycling too.

The handling of spent nuclear fuel should be the exemplar to which other industries aspire.

 

[fromderinside]

...uranium is chemically no more toxic than lead (also widely used in munitions).

Note that Uranium enrichment is used for some power reactor designs, but the degree of enrichment is far lower than for weapons grade uranium, and the byproduct isn't the depleted uranium used for projectiles. Note also that many reactor designs (such as the CANDU heavy water moderated reactors used in Ontario and elsewhere) run on natural uranium without any enrichment at all.

Two points to make here. First, uranium, like lead can be used in other products critical to civilization with demonstrated lethal consequences. The red herring of uranium only be used in weapons munitions is set aside.

Level of enrichment is not the point here. The point is that uranium can be enriched to weapons grade. That is important when considering how to treat rogue nations like Iran and N. Korea.

Oh, and there is this clean up project that seems to be failing in eastern Washington impacting an important salmon resource cycle through interaction with another critical to life componnent, fresh water.

 

[bilby]

...uranium is chemically no more toxic than lead (also widely used in munitions).

Note that Uranium enrichment is used for some power reactor designs, but the degree of enrichment is far lower than for weapons grade uranium, and the byproduct isn't the depleted uranium used for projectiles. Note also that many reactor designs (such as the CANDU heavy water moderated reactors used in Ontario and elsewhere) run on natural uranium without any enrichment at all.

Two points to make here. First, uranium, like lead can be used in other products critical to civilization with demonstrated lethal consequences. The red herring of uranium only be used in weapons munitions is set aside.

It's not a 'red herring'; Nobody but you has so much as suggested it.

Level of enrichment is not the point here. The point is that uranium can be enriched to weapons grade. That is important when considering how to treat rogue nations like Iran and N. Korea.

Which has EXACTLY fuck all to do with nuclear power, which is the topic of this thread.

If and when you have something other than a knee-jerk response to the word 'uranium' to offer, feel free to post a coherent response to my thread.

 

[fromderinside]

Everything I wrote plays in to the human factor on the topic. If it were only engineers involved they might trade lead or uranium for other products because those are cheaper than alternatives ergo more can be done for society blah, blah, blah.

All you have presented is correct up to the point of how it can be used then it all breaks down.

Nuclear power is a political topic which is why it is is 'feared'. Interesting how you avoided things like cleanup in my broadside. If you can assure there will be no loose cannon like Trump in charge then your rational presentation might play more serenely. Obviously that is not the case.

I wonder why it is legitimate to talk of depleted uranium in the use of weapons but to have enrichment minimized in the discussion of power plants?

Let me demonstrate.

Just think that without climate change aborigines might never have made it to australia and your land would now be part of oceana as result of navigation oriented peoples. Just sayin

I guess things just swill in the drain differently down under.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Okay....If that is the case, then why is it that the disposal of the spent fuel rods from functioning nuclear generation facilities was, and I presume, still is, such a butthurt?

Yucca Mountain is a dead letter, I understand.

The handling of spent nuclear fuel is not in any way problematic.

https://thoughtscapism.com/2017/11/04/nuclear-waste-ideas-vs-reality/

The only 'problem' is that lots of people put a lot of effort into persuading people that there's a problem.

They are either lying or misinformed.

Nuclear waste is a problem in the same way that the second coming of Jesus is a problem - strictly for belivers only.

Yucca Mountain was never needed; It was a futile attempt to make something that was already safe, safe enough for people who will never be satisfied by any level of safety.

In the sixty years that the industry has existed, nobody has been harmed by spent nuclear fuel.

https://nuclear.duke-energy.com/2016/10/05/the-facts-about-used-nuclear-fuel

Spent fuel is ceramic pellets. It's not inclined to move or 'leak', and just needs a few inches of concrete to protect it from direct contact. It's dangerous in the way that a recently cast lump of iron is dangerous - it will burn you if you get realy close without protection, but all you need to stay safe is to stay away. It's less hazardous than the waste routinely dumped into the environment by other industries, including coal power plants.

And unlike any other industry, nuclear power takes responsibility for it, and looks after it.

Waste is a problem for every industry, except nuclear power, where the problems have actually been addressed and solved.

I think the main reason people are worried about the spent nuclear fuel is because of a misunderstanding of how nuclear half life works. They hear that the nuclear fuel will remain radioactive for a billion years. What they're imagining is the fallout from Chernobyl or Hiroshima for a billion years. As if anybody getting close to it will be vaporised during this time.

The reality is of course that the nuclear stuff that is screamingly radioactive will all be gone in a couple of weeks. Just after half a year nuclear waste is mostly harmless. That's how half-life works. The more radioactive (ie dangerous) it is the faster it becomes harmless. The part of radioactive waste that will stay radioactive for a billion years we can probably eat by the spoonfull and we'll be fine. Still not a good idea. But nothing to lose any sleep over.

I had a discussion with a (otherwise reasonable) friend in hysterics over that the radioactive Fukushima coolant was being dumped into the sea. He decided to stop eating fish from the Pacific because he was worried that he might die. He thought all life in the Pacific would be gone soon. I tried to explain to him. He sent me to a bunch of blogs and videos (all made by scientifically illiterate buffoons). I tried to explain that those people were probably also misinformed. I failed to convince him. He thought there was just so much information out there "proving" me wrong. The radioactive water was dumped six years(!!!) after the accident. Not to mention all the water in the Pacific diluting it and all the radioactive material constantly being pumped into the Pacific by volcanism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But yes, people do overreact to the word "nuclear."

A great example of this is discussions about the radiation levels in the spent uranium used in certain American munitions.

Nitpick: The weapons you are referring to are depleted uranium, not spent uranium. They're made out of U-238, something unsuitable as fuel for current reactors. (It can be used in the cycle of a breeder reactor, but those have been squashed because they make plutonium. Never mind that the plutonium that comes out of a power reactor isn't useful for a bomb--it's too contaminated with Pu-240--and if you can separate that out you also could separate out U-235 from U-238 and build a uranium bomb without even having a reactor or having to deal with the hot stuff. (U-235/U-238 separation is considerably easier than Pu-239/Pu-240 separation.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Okay....If that is the case, then why is it that the disposal of the spent fuel rods from functioning nuclear generation facilities was, and I presume, still is, such a butthurt?

Yucca Mountain is a dead letter, I understand.

Because the greens want to scuttle anything big and they have managed to instill quite a fear of the spent fuel.

In a sensible world:

1) Reprocess the spent fuel. About 90% of the original is unused and should go back into the reactor.

2) During the reprocessing extract out various isotopes with commercial value.

3) During the reprocessing extract out the plutonium and send it back to the fuel plant--reactors don't care if it's just uranium or uranium/plutonium in the fuel.

4) Once these steps have been taken what's left decays to ambient in only 10,000 years. This means that putting it in containment with an expected lifespan of 10,000 years reduces the risk from it to zero and in reality a breech long before then poses only a very minimal threat. All the seriously-considered approaches for handling the waste are fine. Using this approach the arguments about the merits of the various disposal techniques are akin to a big debate in the hardware store about the merits of various hammers for the purpose of smashing an egg.

Personally, I'm opposed to Yucca Mountain because it's too good--someday we will come to our senses and reprocess those rods, they should be someplace reasonably accessible. Hence I favor the salt mine approach. I'm not worried about the risk from Yucca Mountain, though, even though I live less than 100 miles from it.

As for the waste volume: Compare it to coal.

World power production is 23PWh. Lets take a landfill site that's suitable for the fly ash produced by the coal needed to make 23PWh. Next door we build a site of the same size for the waste from 23PWh of nuclear power.

Obviously, the coal site fills up in one year and we need to make another. The nuclear site, though--it never fills up because before it's full the oldest stuff has decayed to ambient and no longer needs any special containment.

 

[bilby]

Everything I wrote plays in to the human factor on the topic. If it were only engineers involved they might trade lead or uranium for other products because those are cheaper than alternatives ergo more can be done for society blah, blah, blah.

All you have presented is correct up to the point of how it can be used then it all breaks down.

Nuclear power is a political topic which is why it is is 'feared'. Interesting how you avoided things like cleanup in my broadside. If you can assure there will be no loose cannon like Trump in charge then your rational presentation might play more serenely. Obviously that is not the case.

I wonder why it is legitimate to talk of depleted uranium in the use of weapons but to have enrichment minimized in the discussion of power plants?

Let me demonstrate.

Just think that without climate change aborigines might never have made it to australia and your land would now be part of oceana as result of navigation oriented peoples. Just sayin

I guess things just swill in the drain differently down under.

I have no idea what you think you are talking about; But it seems you may be concerned that Trump might get control of nuclear weapons. If that is your concern, then I have some bad news for you.

 

[fromderinside]

I have no idea what you think you are talking about; But it seems you may be concerned that Trump might get control of nuclear weapons. If that is your concern, then I have some bad news for you.

Obviously you have no idea of what I'm talking about. During Korea we had a president who stood up to the Great MacArthur when the latter advocated bombing the Yalu with nukes to minimize loss of UN lives against the Chinese joining of the Police Action in Korea.

Of course nuclear is political because nuclear is still the penultimate deterrent and weapon of aggression available to those who would have their way.

Man's and the US's progression in NP has followed two tracks, efficiency and lethality of fuel. Also, as an aside, on the other hand those who want nuclear power resist any kind of effective abatement whenever such is needed. One need only look at Hanford to see evidence of that phenomenon.

We are now openly bantering about using our military and a government to use nukes to punish those who would try to bring Islam to america. You need no more than the USSC upholding the recent Trump ban against five primarily Islamic, brown, nations to understand we aren't that truman america any more.

We aren't a safe place any more. Knowing we're humans, we never were, but now it's becoming obvious. Just how many leaders who are rulers rather than leaders do e need before you get the idea that nuclear poser is just one of the tools they will very likely use. The two most powerful nations in the world used to are becoming aligned as triblists who oppose browning or yellowing their nations which will be inevitable given how populations are changing.

Don't stand to close to anyone who wants you to chose white over any other shade is the guide for the time and nuclear is clearly in the hands of those who are so bent.

Yes I fear what man will do with nuclear power beyond the good of humanity. We're just not civilized enough to resist that temptation.

I really don't belive we can resist the simplicity of the zero sum game.

 

[bilby]

I have no idea what you think you are talking about; But it seems you may be concerned that Trump might get control of nuclear weapons. If that is your concern, then I have some bad news for you.

Obviously you have no idea of what I'm talking about. During Korea we had a president who stood up to the Great MacArthur when the latter advocated bombing the Yalu with nukes to minimize loss of UN lives against the Chinese joining of the Police Action in Korea.

Of course nuclear is political because nuclear is still the penultimate deterrent and weapon of aggression available to those who would have their way.

Man's and the US's progression in NP has followed two tracks, efficiency and lethality of fuel. Also, as an aside, on the other hand those who want nuclear power resist any kind of effective abatement whenever such is needed. One need only look at Hanford to see evidence of that phenomenon.

We are now openly bantering about using our military and a government to use nukes to punish those who would try to bring Islam to america. You need no more than the USSC upholding the recent Trump ban against five primarily Islamic, brown, nations to understand we aren't that truman america any more.

We aren't a safe place any more. Knowing we're humans, we never were, but now it's becoming obvious. Just how many leaders who are rulers rather than leaders do e need before you get the idea that nuclear poser is just one of the tools they will very likely use. The two most powerful nations in the world used to are becoming aligned as triblists who oppose browning or yellowing their nations which will be inevitable given how populations are changing.

Don't stand to close to anyone who wants you to chose white over any other shade is the guide for the time and nuclear is clearly in the hands of those who are so bent.

Yes I fear what man will do with nuclear power beyond the good of humanity. We're just not civilized enough to resist that temptation.

I really don't belive we can resist the simplicity of the zero sum game.

OK, so you are one of those people who simply cannot spot the difference between a bomb and a power plant.

Thanks for playing; Your stupidity is killing the planet.

There are five declared and four other nuclear-armed countries (assuming Israel’s warheads detonate). There are 31 nations with nuclear power stations (and 58 with research reactors). Only seven of the nine nuclear-armed countries have civilian power programs.

All of the technical factors can be circumvented with sufficient time and money. Uneconomic fuel cycles can be run and warheads built with high levels of radioactivity. However, no country has developed indigenous nuclear weapons after deploying civilian nuclear power stations.

Historically, if a country wants to produce a nuclear bomb, they build reactors especially for the job of making plutonium, and ignore civilian power stations.

Debunking myths on nuclear power (it’s not for making bombs)

Even among more open-minded observers, the tendency to conflate nuclear energy with nuclear weapons is hard to resist. Both technologies involve the release of energy from atomic reactions, and nuclear energy was originally developed by the U.S. Navy as a source of electricity to power submarines and aircraft carriers.

But it is also extremely misleading. Neither the physics nor the technologies are the same, nor are the institutions that manage the two technologies.

Time to stop confusing nuclear weapons with nuclear power

Contrary to many scholars’ and analysts’ claims, countries with nuclear energy programs historically have not been significantly more likely to pursue or acquire nuclear weapons.


Although nuclear energy programs increase a state’s technical ability to develop nuclear weapons, they generate countervailing political obstacles to proliferation. Proliferators with nuclear energy programs are more vulnerable to intelligence-gathering efforts and
nonproliferation pressure and encounter higher costs from nonproliferation sanctions, which may cripple their energy programs.


The ongoing decline of the U.S. nuclear industry threatens to erode political obstacles to proliferation, as the diminished U.S. role in the nuclear marketplace means that the United States is less able to use peaceful nuclear trade to promote and enforce nonproliferation norms.

Nuclear Energy and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons - How Worried Should We Be? [pdf]

 

[DrZoidberg]

The hard part of building a nuclear bomb is making the plutonium. Any plant that makes useable fuel for nuclear power can pretty easily be converted to making weapons grade plutonium.

Physics for Future Presidents had a good lecture on this.

Any country with nuclear power will, if they want it, have a nuclear bomb. I still think it's worth it.

 

[bilby]

The hard part of building a nuclear bomb is making the plutonium. Any plant that makes useable fuel for nuclear power can pretty easily be converted to making weapons grade plutonium.

Physics for Future Presidents had a good lecture on this.

Any country with nuclear power will, if they want it, have a nuclear bomb. I still think it's worth it.

That's nonsense. Plutonium is not used as a fuel in nuclear power plants, except as 'mixed oxide' (aka MOX - uranium oxide mixed with plutonium oxide). MOX is not a viable source of weapons grade material.

If you want weapons grade plutonium, you need to run a reactor for no more than a couple of months between fuelings (power reactors usually go a couple of years), with a large excess of ²³⁸U (which is in itself not a fuel, nor a weapons material, and which fucks any chance you have of generating useful amounts of electrical power). The plutonium then needs to be extracted and purified, which is a seriously non-trivial task. Using a power reactor for Plutonium manufacturing is technically possible, but nobody has ever bothered to try. It's just too hard, and the reactor does a poor job of making either electricity or plutonium. It could probably be done - but it's easier to just use a specialist plutonium making reactor and forget about electricity generation.

Indeed, that's what all of the nations that have developed nuclear weapons have done. Nuclear weapons development can lead to the development of a nuclear power generation technology. The reverse has never happened anywhere - it's just not sensible nor helpful to build power plants and then use them to make plutonium. Both the engineering problems and the political issues (ie hiding what you are doing from the IAEA) are too hard to overcome.

Any country whether or not they have nuclear power will, if they want it, get a nuclear bomb - unless they get caught and their bomb making facilities bombed to dust.

If you want to make a crude nuclear bomb, you can do it with natural uranium and a shitload of centrifuges - and no reactors at all. That's how the Hiroshima bomb was made. You still need that shitload of centrifuges for a plutonium bomb - but you ALSO need a specialist plutonium making reactor - or a LOT of money and patience.

Trying to prevent people from making nuclear bombs by not letting them build nuclear power reactors is a completely pointless and futile effort.

The ONLY reason that people conflate nuclear power reactors with bomb making is that the anti-nuclear propagandists can see what a powerful and effective image this forms in the minds of their target audience. But from both an engineering and a political perspective, it's total nonsense.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The hard part of building a nuclear bomb is making the plutonium. Any plant that makes useable fuel for nuclear power can pretty easily be converted to making weapons grade plutonium.

Physics for Future Presidents had a good lecture on this.

Any country with nuclear power will, if they want it, have a nuclear bomb. I still think it's worth it.

That's nonsense. Plutonium is not used as a fuel in nuclear power plants, except as 'mixed oxide' (aka MOX - uranium oxide mixed with plutonium oxide). MOX is not a viable source of weapons grade material.

If you want weapons grade plutonium, you need to run a reactor for no more than a couple of months between fuelings (power reactors usually go a couple of years), with a large excess of ²³⁸U (which is in itself not a fuel, nor a weapons material, and which fucks any chance you have of generating useful amounts of electrical power). The plutonium then needs to be extracted and purified, which is a seriously non-trivial task. Using a power reactor for Plutonium manufacturing is technically possible, but nobody has ever bothered to try. It's just too hard, and the reactor does a poor job of making either electricity or plutonium. It could probably be done - but it's easier to just use a specialist plutonium making reactor and forget about electricity generation.

Indeed, that's what all of the nations that have developed nuclear weapons have done. Nuclear weapons development can lead to the development of a nuclear power generation technology. The reverse has never happened anywhere - it's just not sensible nor helpful to build power plants and then use them to make plutonium. Both the engineering problems and the political issues (ie hiding what you are doing from the IAEA) are too hard to overcome.

Any country whether or not they have nuclear power will, if they want it, get a nuclear bomb - unless they get caught and their bomb making facilities bombed to dust.

If you want to make a crude nuclear bomb, you can do it with natural uranium and a shitload of centrifuges - and no reactors at all. That's how the Hiroshima bomb was made. You still need that shitload of centrifuges for a plutonium bomb - but you ALSO need a specialist plutonium making reactor - or a LOT of money and patience.

Trying to prevent people from making nuclear bombs by not letting them build nuclear power reactors is a completely pointless and futile effort.

The ONLY reason that people conflate nuclear power reactors with bomb making is that the anti-nuclear propagandists can see what a powerful and effective image this forms in the minds of their target audience. But from both an engineering and a political perspective, it's total nonsense.

I don't understand what you are arguing against. You just affirmed everything I said. I agree with you fully. Yes, making nuclear weapons is a question of money and patience. Something any country... even the small ones... have access to.

The good news is that it's very hard to make weapons grade plutonium clandestinaly. It aparently needs a bunch of specialised buildings that we, for some reason I never understood, can be spotted via sattelite. That's how Saddam's nuclear weapons program was busted. And he stopped.

I don't know why, but I think it's funny that when it was spotted that Iraq was building nuclear weapons in 1988 Israel just popped out of nowhere and bombed the site into oblivion. And then went back to sleep. If they hadn't done that Iraq would probably have developed nuclear weapons. And it was Iraq's earlier plutonium creation sites that made the western observers unsure about whether Iraq had fired them up again. They hadn't. Still hard to tell.

 

[bilby]

The hard part of building a nuclear bomb is making the plutonium. Any plant that makes useable fuel for nuclear power can pretty easily be converted to making weapons grade plutonium.

Physics for Future Presidents had a good lecture on this.

Any country with nuclear power will, if they want it, have a nuclear bomb. I still think it's worth it.

That's nonsense. Plutonium is not used as a fuel in nuclear power plants, except as 'mixed oxide' (aka MOX - uranium oxide mixed with plutonium oxide). MOX is not a viable source of weapons grade material.

If you want weapons grade plutonium, you need to run a reactor for no more than a couple of months between fuelings (power reactors usually go a couple of years), with a large excess of ²³⁸U (which is in itself not a fuel, nor a weapons material, and which fucks any chance you have of generating useful amounts of electrical power). The plutonium then needs to be extracted and purified, which is a seriously non-trivial task. Using a power reactor for Plutonium manufacturing is technically possible, but nobody has ever bothered to try. It's just too hard, and the reactor does a poor job of making either electricity or plutonium. It could probably be done - but it's easier to just use a specialist plutonium making reactor and forget about electricity generation.

Indeed, that's what all of the nations that have developed nuclear weapons have done. Nuclear weapons development can lead to the development of a nuclear power generation technology. The reverse has never happened anywhere - it's just not sensible nor helpful to build power plants and then use them to make plutonium. Both the engineering problems and the political issues (ie hiding what you are doing from the IAEA) are too hard to overcome.

Any country whether or not they have nuclear power will, if they want it, get a nuclear bomb - unless they get caught and their bomb making facilities bombed to dust.

If you want to make a crude nuclear bomb, you can do it with natural uranium and a shitload of centrifuges - and no reactors at all. That's how the Hiroshima bomb was made. You still need that shitload of centrifuges for a plutonium bomb - but you ALSO need a specialist plutonium making reactor - or a LOT of money and patience.

Trying to prevent people from making nuclear bombs by not letting them build nuclear power reactors is a completely pointless and futile effort.

The ONLY reason that people conflate nuclear power reactors with bomb making is that the anti-nuclear propagandists can see what a powerful and effective image this forms in the minds of their target audience. But from both an engineering and a political perspective, it's total nonsense.

I don't understand what you are arguing against. You just affirmed everything I said. I agree with you fully. Yes, making nuclear weapons is a question of money and patience. Something any country... even the small ones... have access to.

The good news is that it's very hard to make weapons grade plutonium clandestinaly. It aparently needs a bunch of specialised buildings that we, for some reason I never understood, can be spotted via sattelite. That's how Saddam's nuclear weapons program was busted. And he stopped.

I don't know why, but I think it's funny that when it was spotted that Iraq was building nuclear weapons in 1988 Israel just popped out of nowhere and bombed the site into oblivion. And then went back to sleep. If they hadn't done that Iraq would probably have developed nuclear weapons. And it was Iraq's earlier plutonium creation sites that made the western observers unsure about whether Iraq had fired them up again. They hadn't. Still hard to tell.

Your statement "Any plant that makes useable fuel for nuclear power can pretty easily be converted to making weapons grade plutonium" is false. Such a plant can be made to produce plutonium (but not easily - it's probably easier to build a new specialist reactor instead); and that plutonium is FAR from 'weapons grade' until it has had significant, difficult and costly further processing - using cascades of gas centrifuges, that live in those buildings you were wondering about.

 

[fromderinside]

Geez bilby. Just because it's not easy doesn't mean that both technologies aren't side by side at the same glocations. Here is some place where both commercial and military programs existed and there have been dual purpose reactors.  Hanford Site. Read about reactor N and consider where the civilian WPPSS reactors are located.

Did I mention my dad worked there from 1953 to 1972 and that our household was subjected to at least three contamination studies while I was in HS 1956 to 1959. I'm too bald to have screeching hair and I don't really care whether we do ourselves in or no. What I care about is us having the proper perspective on such as nuclear power rather than some biased whitewashing whether militaristic or apologetic on the subject.

The reason we have a problem with nuclear power is that in spite of the 'generalies' and the heart warming humanity perspectives of my liberal brothers ans sisters nuclear power is about domination and not saving the world. One would have to kick human nature in the face to get it to be other than what it's progenitors produced, tribalistic meat eaters with tools and attributes.

For the most part everything to which you refer is true enough except it is contained in a political bubble that fails to recognize native tendencies. I actually am inspired by Pinker and his faction of the civilization movement who document the trends toward more humanistic behavior in humans. However we haven't gotten here by being cum bi ya everybody belongs beings.

Just keep that in mind when you patch together your next assault on our extant insanity. The reason nuclear is so damn controversial is it is so central to people controlling power. It is not, as you seem to think, just a matter of education.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The hard part of building a nuclear bomb is making the plutonium. Any plant that makes useable fuel for nuclear power can pretty easily be converted to making weapons grade plutonium.

Physics for Future Presidents had a good lecture on this.

Any country with nuclear power will, if they want it, have a nuclear bomb. I still think it's worth it.

That's nonsense. Plutonium is not used as a fuel in nuclear power plants, except as 'mixed oxide' (aka MOX - uranium oxide mixed with plutonium oxide). MOX is not a viable source of weapons grade material.

If you want weapons grade plutonium, you need to run a reactor for no more than a couple of months between fuelings (power reactors usually go a couple of years), with a large excess of ²³⁸U (which is in itself not a fuel, nor a weapons material, and which fucks any chance you have of generating useful amounts of electrical power). The plutonium then needs to be extracted and purified, which is a seriously non-trivial task. Using a power reactor for Plutonium manufacturing is technically possible, but nobody has ever bothered to try. It's just too hard, and the reactor does a poor job of making either electricity or plutonium. It could probably be done - but it's easier to just use a specialist plutonium making reactor and forget about electricity generation.

The point is that if you can build a power reactor you can make plutonium. While a power reactor is far from ideal for the purpose it will serve.

If you want to make a crude nuclear bomb, you can do it with natural uranium and a shitload of centrifuges - and no reactors at all. That's how the Hiroshima bomb was made. You still need that shitload of centrifuges for a plutonium bomb - but you ALSO need a specialist plutonium making reactor - or a LOT of money and patience.

Trying to prevent people from making nuclear bombs by not letting them build nuclear power reactors is a completely pointless and futile effort.

The ONLY reason that people conflate nuclear power reactors with bomb making is that the anti-nuclear propagandists can see what a powerful and effective image this forms in the minds of their target audience. But from both an engineering and a political perspective, it's total nonsense.

I do agree that there's no point in not letting them build reactors.

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Your statement "Any plant that makes useable fuel for nuclear power can pretty easily be converted to making weapons grade plutonium" is false. Such a plant can be made to produce plutonium (but not easily - it's probably easier to build a new specialist reactor instead); and that plutonium is FAR from 'weapons grade' until it has had significant, difficult and costly further processing - using cascades of gas centrifuges, that live in those buildings you were wondering about.

Why do you need gas centrifuges to separate plutonium from the fuel rods? They are different chemically, you don't need to do isotope separation.