So it should be OK to store excess plutonium under your house?
And again, just precisely who do you expect to pay for the massive reactor construction, operating, and decomissioning costs? ... Which is probably the the most pertinent question here, considering the nuke industry doesn't have enough faith in its own product to put any of its money in any nuke project anywhere at any time.
The Breeder Reactor
http://www.3rd1000.com/nuclear/nuke101g.htm
Conventional nuclear reactors use uranium-235 as their fuel. However, uranium-235 makes up less than 1% of naturally occurring uranium. Most uranium occurs as the isotope uranium-238. The only problem is that uranium-238 can't be used in conventional nuclear reactors. It doesn't undergo fission like uranium-235. However, if uranium-238 could be used as a nuclear fuel, there would be sufficient uranium to run nuclear reactors for hundreds of years.
The Breeder Reactor was developed to use uranium-238. Here's how it works. A reactor is built with a core of fissionable plutonium, Pu-239. The plutonium-239 core is surrounded by a layer of uranium-238. As the plutonium-239 undergoes spontaneous fission, it releases neutrons. These neutrons convert uranium-238 to plutonium-239. In other words, this reactor breeds fuel (Pu-239) as it operates. After all the uranium-238 has been changed to plutonium-239, the reactor is refueled.
However, there are some major problems with the breeder reactor. To begin with, plutonium-239 is extremely toxic. If an individual inhales a small amount, he or she will contract lung cancer. Also, the half-life of the material is extremely long, about 24,000 years. This could create an almost impossible disposal problem if large amounts of this material are generated.
Also, because of the nature of the reactor core, water can't be used as a coolant. Instead, liquid sodium must be used. In the event of an accident a catastrophe could develop because sodium reacts violently with water and air.
Nuclear Waste/'Fast Breeder' Reactor - Study: Problem-Plagued Reactor No Solution to Long-Term Nuclear Waste Problem
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/febr ... actors.php
(PRINCETON, N.J. ) - Hopes that the “fast breeder”– a plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor designed to produce more fuel than it consumed -- might serve as a major part of the long-term nuclear waste disposal solution are not merited by the dismal track record to date of such sodium-cooled reactors in France, India, Japan, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to a major new study from the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM).
Titled “Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status,” the IPFM report concludes: “The problems (with fast breeder reactors) … make it hard to dispute Admiral Hyman Rickover’s summation in 1956, based on his experience with a sodium-cooled reactor developed to power an early U.S. nuclear submarine, that such reactors are ‘expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair.’”
Plagued by high costs, often multi-year downtime for repairs (including a 15-year reactor restart delay in Japan), multiple safety problems (among them often catastrophic sodium fires triggered simply by contact with oxygen), and unresolved proliferation risks, “fast breeder” reactors already have been the focus of more than $50 billion in development spending, including more than $10 billion each by the U.S., Japan and Russia. As the IPFM report notes: “Yet none of these efforts has produced a reactor that is anywhere near economically competitive with light-water reactors … After six decades and the expenditure of the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars, the promise of breeder reactors remains largely unfulfilled and efforts to commercialize them have been steadily cut back in most countries.”
The new IPFM report is a timely and important addition to the understanding about reactor technology. Today, with increased attention being paid both to so-called “Generation IV” reactors, some of which are based on the fast reactor technology, and a new Obama Administration panel focusing on reprocessing and other waste issues, interest in some quarters has shifted back to fast reactors as a possible means by which to bypass concerns about the long-term storage of nuclear waste.
Frank von Hippel, Ph.D., co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and professor of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, said: “The breeder reactor dream is not dead but it has receded far into the future. In the 1970s, breeder advocates were predicting that the world would have thousands of breeder reactors operating by now. Today, they are predicting commercialization by approximately 2050. In the meantime, the world has to deal with the legacy of the dream; approximately 250 tons of separated weapon-usable plutonium and ongoing — although, in most cases struggling — reprocessing programs in France, India, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom.”
Mycle Schneider, Paris, international consultant on energy and nuclear policy, said: “France built with Superphénix, the only commercial-size plutonium fueled breeder reactor in nuclear history. After an endless series of very costly technical, legal and safety problems it was shut down in 1998 with one of the worst operating records in nuclear history.”
Thomas B. Cochran, nuclear physicist and senior scientist in the Nuclear Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “Fast reactor development programs failed in the: 1) United States; 2) France; 3) United Kingdom; 4) Germany; 5) Japan; 6) Italy; 7) Soviet Union/Russia 8) U.S. Navy and 9) the Soviet Navy. The program in India is showing no signs of success and the program in China is only at a very early stage of development. Despite the fact that fast breeder development began in 1944, now some 65 year later, of the 438 operational nuclear power reactors worldwide, only one of these, the BN-600 in Russia, is a commercial-size fast reactor and it hardly qualifies as a successful breeder. The Soviet Union/Russia never closed the fuel cycle and has yet to fuel BN-600 with plutonium.”
M.V. Ramana, Ph.D., visiting research scholar, Woodrow Wilson School and the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, Princeton University, said: “Along with Russia, India is one of only two countries that are currently constructing commercial scale breeder reactors. Both the history of the program and the economic and safety features of the reactor suggest, however, that the program will not fulfill the promises with which it was begun and is being pursued. Breeder reactors have always underpinned the DAE’s claims about generating large quantities of cheap electricity necessary for development. Today, more than five decades after those plans were announced, that promise is yet to be fulfilled. As elsewhere, breeder reactors are likely to be unsafe and costly, and their contribution to overall electricity generation will be modest at best.”
