nerdgirl 0 #1 November 11, 2009 Inspired by [jgoose71]'s thread: As no commercial entity has pursued building or operating a domestic reprocessing facility over the last 28 years & I'm not aware that any is even thinking about it, should the US federal government subsidize the construction of one? What do you think? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Amazon 7 #2 November 11, 2009 Quote Inspired by [jgoose71]'s thread: As no commercial entity has pursued building or operating a domestic reprocessing facility over the last 28 years & I'm not aware that any is even thinking about it, should the US federal government subsidize the construction of one? What do you think? /Marg The only problem is I think that would step on some of the treaties we signed... that closed down PUREX Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #3 November 12, 2009 Quote Inspired by [jgoose71]'s thread: As no commercial entity has pursued building or operating a domestic reprocessing facility over the last 28 years & I'm not aware that any is even thinking about it, should the US federal government subsidize the construction of one? What do you think? /Marg with the sharp increase in cost for usable U fuel in the past couple years, is there really a choice? Either the capacity or the supply right now wouldn't really allow for a massive uptick in nuclear power. It seems inevitable that we will need to go this way in time, or continue to burn a lot of coal in spite of any GW concerns. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billeisele 130 #4 November 12, 2009 i think this is a good idea, reprocess nuclear bombs into fuel it is only $5 billion tax payer dollars, and the citizens of SC and GA are enjoying the jobs http://www.moxproject.com/files/MOX%20The%20future%20of%20SRS.pdfGive one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nerdgirl 0 #5 November 13, 2009 Quote The only problem is I think that would step on some of the treaties we signed... that closed down PUREX Which treaties led to the closing of the Hanford PUREX facility? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nerdgirl 0 #6 November 13, 2009 Quotei think this is a good idea, reprocess nuclear bombs into fuel it is only $5 billion tax payer dollars, and the citizens of SC and GA are enjoying the jobs http://www.moxproject.com/files/MOX%20The%20future%20of%20SRS.pdf That’s a great point! Iirc from some of your posts, you probably know that on average 1 of 10 light bulbs in the US is powered using nuclear fuel that was obtained and down-blended from former Soviet nuclear weapons. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nerdgirl 0 #7 November 13, 2009 Quotewith the sharp increase in cost for usable U fuel in the past couple years, is there really a choice? The steep rise was a bubble of sorts. Hit ~$130 per lb in July 07, iirc, and is less than $50 per lb these days. But yes, there is a finite amount currently available on the commercial market. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #8 November 13, 2009 QuoteQuotewith the sharp increase in cost for usable U fuel in the past couple years, is there really a choice? The steep rise was a bubble of sorts. Hit ~$130 per lb in July 07, iirc, and is less than $50 per lb these days. But yes, there is a finite amount currently available on the commercial market. /Marg It feels like if the US made a serious recommitment to nuclear power, that the market would become as strained and turbulent as the oil one. But I don't really know how tapped the supply is; there hasn't been a century of incentive to find every deposit like there was with oil (but still a lot of motivation over the past 60). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrewwhyte 1 #9 November 13, 2009 there are considerable reserves in Canada that are not currently commercial. A rise in demand could change that fairly quickly. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nerdgirl 0 #10 November 13, 2009 QuoteIt feels like if the US made a serious recommitment to nuclear power, that the market would become as strained and turbulent as the oil one. But I don't really know how tapped the supply is; there hasn't been a century of incentive to find every deposit like there was with oil (but still a lot of motivation over the past 60). Most of the folks whom I have talked with/heard talk expect that reprocessing will satisfy the near- & mid-terms needs rather than spur search for new uranium deposits, which is a much more expensive way to go about it. Reprocessing through PUREX process is much easier. That was what India did to get the plutonium they wanted in 1974 using the fuel from a Canadian reactor. The DPRK used a modified Purex process to obtain its estimated ~30kgs of Pu. (It takes 4-8kg for a Pu-based nuclear weapon.) The MOX fuel cycle has led to ~200 tons of separated plutonium accumulated in France & UK. Not sure the figures for Canada off the top of my head. But that's the proliferation side ... not the purely commercial side. Nonaqueous “dry” methods, such pyrometallurgical reprocessing, don’t have the same proliferation risks. Resistance, imo, is largely based on current dominance of PUREX or modified PUREX methods commercially and people not liking the idea of molten salts. And I think -- purely speculative on my part -- that there is an expectation within the commercial industry that the government will pick up the tab. It's more complicated than that obviously, but I do think that is a significant factor. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Amazon 7 #11 November 13, 2009 QuoteQuote The only problem is I think that would step on some of the treaties we signed... that closed down PUREX Which treaties led to the closing of the Hanford PUREX facility? /Marg I will leave the research of all those ( to me) rather boring documents that stated in great deal what was to be done to reduce the amount of devices contained in the shiny metal death thingies that are so fascinating to some people. I guess I got over my fascination with them since I was able to see them being shuttled from bunker to bunker to assemble them.... and then transported out to the Buff's and loaded into the new birds that were going on alert. The old ones would get removed from the birds coming off alert and shuttled back to the bunker area and as the nuke guys unassembled them various components were sent to various bunkers. It was interesting living at ground zero of a rather large bullseye of several of the very largest thermonuclear devices that the Soviets had at the time. ANY scenario that would have called for a nuclear counterforces strike would have targeted a first strike right on that nice little bomb storage facility I could look into from my barracks window. AS part of the peace dividend the former USSR and the US decommed thousands of devices based on several treaties. I surmise that with those reductions the processing of more fissile material would be unneeded and probably prohibited since supposedly no more material was needed to build new devices. I am sure are already storing the triggers and other materials even if the rest of the hardware was sent to the breakers and smelters... or broken and stored in plain site so sat verifications could be made. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
