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Thorium Fuel Has Proliferation Risk
Capt.Albatross writes "Thorium has attracted interest as a potentially safer fuel for nuclear power generation. In part, this has been because of the absence of a route to nuclear weapons, but a group of British scientists have identified a path that leads to uranium-233 via protactinium-233 from irradiated thorium. The protactinium separation could possibly be done with standard lab equipment, which would allow it to be done covertly, and deliver the minimum of U233 required for a weapon in less than a year. The full article is in Nature, but paywalled."
If global climate change is going to be as bad as some people are saying, then it makes sense to just use the damn thorium. We've been dealing with nuclear weapons for more than 70 years.
News for nerds, stuff that matters. Not news for zealots, stuff that might matter.
Mind you, they occasionally fail at the former, but this isn't one of those cases. It's news for nerds, and it matters.
This is all pretty standard and well known. It still takes hot cells and an operating reactor to do.
And, there is nothing in it that can't be done right now regardless if there are thorium fueled reactors or not. The irradiation of the thorium can be done in existing research reactors. Thorium metal is available (it's used to increase emission in electrical filaments and in the mantles of camping lanterns).
This seems mostly to be FUD.
We need to stop bothering about proliferation risks and get concerned about cheap and safe generation of power. Thorium research is useful because it is more plentiful than Uranium in this planet. That is about it. Because of so called proliferation risks nuclear recycling research has been stuck since the 1970s. For all we know we could be separating all the waste with laser separation and burning the actinides in a high temperature nuclear reactor by now. We don't do it because laser separation technology also enables easier separation of Plutonium from the spent fuel for nuclear weapons. Instead the people who want the Plutonium have to use more polluting chemical separation methods such as PUREX. This insanity needs to stop. If the country already has nuclear weapons in its possession why do we need to bother with such concerns? We only reduced nuclear weapon stockpiles due to bilateral treaties. Lack of further technological development is not an obstacle to producing more nuclear weapons for an industrialized nation.
News for nerds, stuff that matters. Not news for zealots, stuff that might matter.
Mind you, they occasionally fail at the former, but this isn't one of those cases. It's news for nerds, and it matters.
Yeah, that whole science thing. Not for nerds - amirite?