UK plutonium stockpile is 'energy in the bank'

[Mark]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34723882

The UK is sitting on a plutonium stockpile that represents "thousands of years" of energy in the bank, according to a leading nuclear scientist. Tim Abram, professor of nuclear fuel technology at the University of Manchester, made the comments at a briefing to discuss the fate of the UK's plutonium.

The Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria has around 140 tonnes of the material. It is now the largest stockpile of civil plutonium in the world.

Continues.....

[PS_RalphW]

In other words, we have this huge pile of highly toxic, highly radioactive metal which would be a terrorist's dream terror weapon, and have no idea what to do with it, since we abandoned the only technology which could make it less of a liability to future generations.

Better call it an asset.

[biffvernon]

DECC spends either 65% or 95% (depending how you do the accounting) of its budget on the nuclear cleanup. It's likely to take a couple of billion pounds a year for the next 120 years and we don't quite know what happens after that! It's all an utter mess, with more problems and unanswered questions than solutions.

[Mark]

Anybody see this programme last night on BBC4....?

Britain’s Nuclear Secrets: Inside Sellafield:
Lying on the remote northwest coast of England is one of the most controversial places in Britain: the nuclear facility known as Sellafield. In this one-off documentary, BBC Four have been given unprecedented access to some of the country’s most secret buildings, revealing the extraordinary experiments, the jaw-dropping technology, and the costly science behind Britain’s attempts to harness the power of the atom. Nuclear physicist Jim Al-Khalili uncovers the story of Sellafield: from the headlong rush to develop nuclear weapons and nuclear power to terrifying accidents, like the Windscale fire and leaks of radioactive material into the sea; from public opposition to the latest reprocessing techniques. Jim examines the ways waste and spend fuel rods have been stored here over the last 70 years and the latest attempts to try and clean some of it up, from storage in vast open air ponds to encasing pieces of old reactors in concrete blocks. Jim looks at the latest efforts and considers whether, 65 years on we are any closer to a solution to the problem of nuclear waste. And throughout the programme, Jim will conduct his own experiments, demonstrating the scientific discoveries that lie at the heart of Britain’s journey into the nuclear age.

Very interesting programme, but terrifying the legacy we're left with....
& the stockpile of plutonium didn't even merit a mention....

[biffvernon]

Catch up:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... sellafield

I saw it when it was first shown, in August.

[biffvernon]

& the stockpile of plutonium didn't even merit a mention....

...somewhere in Sellafield there is today a building – don’t ask which: they won’t tell you – containing the world’s largest civilian stockpile of plutonium. Some 120 tonnes in all. The plutonium is in the form of plutonium dioxide, a powder that could be readily used by terrorists to make dirty bombs. Its presence, said The Royal Society in 2011, “poses a severe security risk” and “undermines the UK’s credibility in non-proliferation debates”. Keeping it secure reportedly costs £100 million a year.

Well worth reading Fred Pearce's Resurgence article: http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article4514.html

[kenneal - lagger]

Anybody see this programme last night on BBC4....?

Yes. I thought it was frightening enough as it was without mentioning all the Plutonium. He did mention that the Uranium could be turned into Barium, as in the original experiment in the 30s with a consequent release of energy, but didn't mention how or even if anyone was looking into designs.

Could a similar thing be done with plutonium? Something along those lines would seem to be the best way of disposing of this waste assuming that it can be done safely and without causing even greater piles of waste!

[Little John]

Anybody see this programme last night on BBC4....?

Yes. I thought it was frightening enough as it was without mentioning all the Plutonium. He did mention that the Uranium could be turned into Barium, as in the original experiment in the 30s with a consequent release of energy, but didn't mention how or even if anyone was looking into designs.

Could a similar thing be done with plutonium? Something along those lines would seem to be the best way of disposing of this waste assuming that it can be done safely and without causing even greater piles of waste!

Plutonium could, in principle be completely disposed of in a far safer manner than it is currently. It would require reprocessing in successive iterations, each time reducing the waste to ever smaller amounts that are ever more radioactive, but with an ever shorter half-life. Until, finally, you end of with a very small amount of very deadly material, but which will decay to safe radiation levels measured in far shorter half-life time-scales than is currently the case.

The only thing stopping the waste being got rid of in this manner is economics and an irrationality about the science largely whipped up by the more emotionally driven sections of the Green movement. There is no insurmountable technological impediment to it. However, the growing threat of climate change and the growing instability of conventional hydrocarbon supplies may well tip that economic balance the other way in due course.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -nightmare

[kenneal - lagger]

According to the Al Kalili program the original 1930s experiment which split the atom, and started the whole atom bomb program off, broke a uranium atom into two non radio active barium atoms with a release of energy. Why can't this be done with the uranium we hold and can it be done with the Plutonium?

[biffvernon]

There is no insurmountable technological impediment to it.

The very limited attempt to reprocess the spent fuel at THORP is being shut down because the technological impediments have not been surmounted.

To actually transmute the plutonium to something harmless is a quite different order of technological challenge and it is quite unrealistic to pursue that as a viable approach in the foreseeable future.

[Mark]

& Chatham House have just released a new report, (unsurprisingly) saying that the risk of a serious cyber attack on civil nuclear power plants is increasing......

Cyber Security at Civil Nuclear Facilities: Understanding the Risks:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publicatio ... ding-risks

[biffvernon]

The new ones will be all right, run by the Chinese.

[clv101]

& Chatham House have just released a new report, (unsurprisingly) saying that the risk of a serious cyber attack on civil nuclear power plants is increasing......

Cyber Security at Civil Nuclear Facilities: Understanding the Risks:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publicatio ... ding-risks

Maybe any new critical infrastructure like a nuclear power station shouldn't be connected to any external data networks. We never used to require nuclear reactors to be online... as online didn't exist. It can't be beyond the whit of man to build an offline reactor.

[biffvernon]

We've discussed this one before a while ago, and I still can't see why seriously safety-critical infrastructure should be connected to the Net, sharing the same wires with every crazy guy in the world.

I'm not sure whether the Net is involved in control of the pumps that keep my low-lying house safe. When installed they were controlled by a man with a bicycle and then they were automated with control from a central office with line-of-sight microwave radio links. I think that system still operates but I wouldn't be surprised if the microwave radio link is itself controlled by a Net connection via Seattle or somewhere.

[cubes]

Why not just store it but make a huge radioisotope thermal generator out of it while it's there. I'm sure it won't produce that much power but it's better than it sitting there.