plutonium management in a nuclear renaissance
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Objective Capital's Industrial Metals, Minerals & Mineable Energy Investment Summit 2011 Ironmongers' Hall, City of London 3 November 2011 Speaker: Ben Koppelman, Royal SocietyTRANSCRIPT
INDUSTRIAL METALS, MINERALS & MINEABLE ENERGYINVESTMENT SUMMIT
IRONMONGERS’ HALL, CITY OF LONDON ● THURSDAY, 3 NOV 2011
www.ObjectiveCapitalConferences.com
Plutonium management in a nuclear renaissanceBen Koppelman – Royal Society
Plutonium management in a nuclear renaissanceBen KoppelmanSenior Policy AdviserScience Policy Centre
Project background‘exam question’:
1)what is the relationship between civil nuclear power and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as other security risks?
2)how make fuel cycle more proliferation resistant and secure?•Technical options?•Non-technical options
Technical focus on management of spent fuel•Recommendations to UK government•Identify best practices for nuclear programmes
Spent fuel
Managing spent fuel
Rationales for fuel cycle choice1) Technical needs
2) Waste management considerations
3) Relative fuel cycle costs
• price of uranium• costs of enriching and preparing uranium fuel• costs of reprocessing and preparing Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel• costs of storing spent fuel• costs of geological disposal
4) Sustainability concerns
• Near term: open fuel cycle, using thermal reactors • Longer term: closed fuel cycle using fast reactors
(2040/2050 at the earliest)
Nuclear proliferationCivil nuclear power today much less of a direct proliferation risk today
• Nuclear weapons programmes separated civil nuclear power programmes
• Nuclear power programmes under international safeguards
• Civil nuclear fuel using high burn up: ‘weapons grade’ vs ‘reactor grade’ plutonium
Nuclear securityDifficult for non-state actors to develop improvised, plutonium-based nuclear weapon
Recent attention to the security risks of separated plutonium, e.g. dispersal device
Best practice for reuseSpent fuel should be reprocessed only when there is a clear plan for its reuse. This plan should seek to:
1) Minimise the amount of separated plutonium produced and the time for which it needs to be stored.
2) Convert separated plutonium into Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel as soon as it is feasible to do so
3) Identify nuclear power reactors in advance to use MOX fuel and ensure conversion into MOX fuel matches reactors’ loading schedules and fuel specifications
4) Transport plutonium as MOX fuel rather than in a separated form
Management of the UK’s plutoniumUK has world’s largest stockpile of separated plutonium •84 tonnes: UK owned (~100 tonnes once contracts completed)•28 tonnes foreign owned
Royal Society advice to Government•2007: MOX as best management route (reuse or immobilisation)•2011: Reuse stockpile in new reactors to be built in UK
• No major engineering challenges; just suitable licensing• Need a new MOX fabrication facility
• UK Government: no public subsidy for nuclear power
Future of reprocessing in the UKLessons from US debates over Yucca Mountain• Cradle to grave planning• Keep options open: contingency in case of unforeseen changes
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) responsible for the Thermal oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP)
• Current assumption is to close THORP after existing contracts• Unclear if NDA has mandate to enter into new commercial
contracts
Prospects for a nuclear renaissance
A future plutonium economy?MOX use: France, Japan (?), Switzerland (?)
Commercial reprocessing facilities: UK, France, Japan (?) Russia • India?• China?
Technological constraints: fast reactor development • Generation IV Forum: Argentina*,Brazil*, Canada, China,
EURATOM, France, Japan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, UK*, USA
Political constraints• US policy on reprocessing
Thorium fuel cycle
Natural thorium, Th-232, is not fissile but on capturing a neutron it leads to fissile U-233. •Similar to non-fissile U-238, which is transmuted to fissile Pu-239 upon capturing neutrons produced by fissile U-235
Thorium does not have a naturally occurring fissile isotope; there is no analogue of U-235.• Another fissile material, either U-235 or Pu-239, is needed to generate the neutrons to start the thorium fuel cycle.
Prospects for thorium?Similar risk as U/Pu fuel cycles:• U-235 or Pu-239 to initiate fuel cycle presupposes enrichment and reprocessing•Spent thorium fuel contains U-233 that is weapons usable
Fast reactors and accelerator driven reactor systems could be used to generate neutrons but these remain viable only in the longer term.
Technologically immature in all areas
Regulatory experience out of date
Waste management still problematic
Incentives for industry to use it