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Program to Use Russian Nukes for US Electricity Comes to an End

Posted by Unknown on from the how-about-u.s.-nukes-now dept.

gbrumfiel writes "For the past two decades, about 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads. Under a program called Megatons to Megawatts, Russian highly-enriched uranium was pulled from old bombs and made into fuel for nuclear reactors. NPR News reports that the program concludes today when the last shipment arrives at a U.S. storage facility. In all nearly 500 tons of uranium was recycled, enough for roughly 20,000 warheads."

2 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And why ... by macpacheco · · Score: 5, Informative

    Specially since this is U-235 (the primary nuclear fuel currently in use on civilian nuclear power stations).
    Using U-235 for nuclear weapons is only common in first generation nuclear programs. You see, enriching uranium is a PITA (separating isotopes), while separating plutonium from anything else is soooo much easier (chemical separation).
    The trick is having a reactor that takes thatplentiful U-238 and hit it with a neutron to make Pu-239 (that nasty plutonium used in bombs). Plutonium isn't naturally occurring.
    If there are still US nuclear weapons that use U-235, those must be the oldest in the inventory.
    So, any association from that Russian nuclear fuel with nuclear bombs is only made by those without any nuclear physics knowledge.

    U-238 is 99,3% of natural uranium. It's the stuff that enrichment removes from the base material (producing depleted uranium).
    A holy grail of peaceful nuclear is breeding Pu-239 from U-238 on the fly inside the reactor and the fission it, but having this happen mixed with all kinds of nasty beta emitters that make using that Pu-239 for nuclear weapons another PITA. Beta radiation is the stuff that really kills (used to kill cancer cells in radiotheraphy), but inside the reactor it's not an issue.

    Not to mention that everybody that has significant stockpiles of Pu-239 want to destroy most of it ! Most nuclear reactors can't deal with nuclear fuel with lots of plutonium.

  2. Re:And why ... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Almost.

    U238 + n -> U239 (neutron capture)
    U239 -> Np239 + e (beta decay)
    Np239 -> Pu239 + e (beta decay)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.