The path from nuclear power to nuclear weapons proliferation

[kristopher]

Energy security is the weak link in the claim that nuclear power is unrelated to nuclear proliferation. This article demonstrates those processes and arguments in the real world.

..."Currently, we have space for spent fuel rods until 2016," says Park Chan-sung, an official at the site, the newest of four nuclear power plant complexes with 20 reactors operating under the aegis of the state-owned Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. "Plans for after 2016 are under discussion."

The issue of what to do with the fuel rods is reaching critical mass. South Korea is a rising manufacturer of nuclear reactors and exporter of nuclear power plants.

Now, it wants to reprocess rather than store its spent fuel rods – despite fears of potential proliferation and questions about a ban on reprocessing imposed by its nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States. The debate is critical not only for South Korea's nuclear energy program but also for efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, talks about "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula, suggesting North Korea will persist in its program as long as South Korea and the US also have nuclear capabilities.

South Korean scientists as well as leaders say the South needs the independence to recycle spent fuel rods. But some observers say that could lead to the South producing plutonium for warheads. South Koreans disavow any ambition other than to extract more uranium to fuel reactors. It would then bury the residue...

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0325/South-Korea-pushes-to-recycle-nuclear-power-plant-fuel

They will almost certainly be allowed to do this because there is no real reason to deny it - and that is the problem. When the arguments for are based on legitimate consequences of using nuclear power, (in this case waste accumulation) then it takes a hell of a lot more than just the future potential of nuclear weapons to deny the change. Once the country has the potential and technologies derived from an active reprocessing program, there is no obstacle to crossing the line to nuclear weapons that is any stronger than an "I cross my heart" type of pledge.

The only way to discourage proliferation via this route is to discourage the spread of nuclear power.



http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=risks+from+nuclear+proliferation&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

[Merchant Marine]

1. If you had bothered to read the rest of the article...

Your concern is answered.

"The difference is more than semantic. "We do not want to produce pure plutonium," says Mr. Choi. "The purpose of recycling is to get only useful elements in spent fuel," including enriched uranium, in a process called pyroprocessing.

At the Korea Atomic Energy Re search Institute in Daejeon, about 80 miles south of Seoul, scientists call pyroprocessing "a long-term solution" for recycling spent fuel rods without producing weapons-grade plutonium. "The point is, pyroprocessing cannot recover plutonium," says Lee Han-soo, director of nuclear fuel cycle process development. "It cannot compare with normal reprocessing."

Pyroprocessing, say engineers, will make maximum use of the spent fuel rods while vastly reducing the need for waste storage space."

Now I did a little googling on this process, and it is indeed a reprocessing solution to proliferation ad it keeps the plutonium mixed with the recovered uranium so it is un-usable for bomb-making.

http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/Frontiers/2002/d1ee4.html

In the meantime the Koreans want to use the same method of reprocessing that the Japanese use. Are you concerned about the Japanese government suddenly developing nuclear weapons and going on a WW3 bender one night?

[Confusious]

3. Thats par for the course with this one

Also ignores the FACT that you don't NEED a nuclear reactor to make a nuclear bomb.

But that's expected.

[Statistical]

9. Exactly. Using a commercial power reactor is about the most ass backwards way to build a bomb.

Can it be done? Sure. Has anyone done it? Nope.

Every nuclear power built nuclear weapons without using spent fuel from commercial power reactors. Far easier to design a simple (1960 era technology) unpressurized graphite pile and produce higher level of plutonium from uranium slugs than can ever be produced from the PWR/BWR.

Hell US, UK & Russia all built nuclear weapons prior to building first commercial power reactor.

[bananas]

11. It increases their ability to break out into weapons production

which increases the likelihood of a nuclear exchange.
It also makes it easier for covert weapons production.
And they have a history of covert weapons research.

[Statistical]

12. The irony is SK has nuclear power. NK doesn't. Of the two coutnries North has the bomb.

Kinda makes that whole argument stupid huh?

If SK wanted a bomb they would have a bomb.
Just like NK has a bomb, India has a bomb, Pakistan has a bomb and within enough years Iran will have a bomb.

[joshcryer]

21. It's pure FUD and disinformation. I have come to learn this now.

I am very skeptical of these guys' post after I made the "nuclear costs" thread and was constantly berated with untrue information.

[kristopher]

14. Using commercial power is the ACCEPTABLE path to nuclear weapons.

Your answer shows the disdain for full information and understanding that characterizes a mindset I've come to expect from the right.

There is an international framework in place that seeks to control the spread of nuclear weapons, and bucking that treaty has consequences. Therefore most countries sign on to it and would be banned from building a reactor that was obviously for nuclear weapons. So your hypothetical is, to be charitable, naive.

I don't say that S. Korea is doing this expressly to get nuclear weapons. In fact, my precise point is that it is an inevitable evolutionary process that is endemic to the widespread use of nuclear power. All that is required to set the stage is for a country to follow the nuclear genie in its own self interests. The ultimate goal need not be acquisition of nuclear weapons for the ultimate outcome be the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

What we don't know is the future. What we do know is that if the future for S.Korea includes escalated foreign policy challenges with China, N.Korea or some other entity, the option to build a stockpile of very powerful nuclear weapons is much, much more viable than it otherwise would be.

[kristopher]

5. And they crossed their heart and hoped to die when they said it.

Yes, I read the rest of the article. Perhaps you should try reading for comprehension.

[Merchant Marine]

19. You're the one who seems convinced that SKorea's civil NPPs

are some sort of mustache-twirlingly evil path to global domination.

Let me point you North, where nuclear weapons have proliferated in the absence of civil NPPs. Oh my god, how did those crazy Norks do it without the evil secret reprocessing!?

[Dead_Parrot]

24. It's the "Belgian world domination" angle

The theory is that because Belgium built nuclear reactors and started reprocessing fuel, all of Europe was plunged into a new dark age of real beer, buns, and French-fries with mayonnaise served up under the iron fist of Hercule Poirot clones armed with nuclear weapons who would annihilate any people not growing a moustache.

By extension, the US should not build any nuclear reactors or reprocess fuel because if it did, it might lead to nuclear weapons and the US might just be tempted to use them.

History? They've heard of it, but it sounds hard.

[Nihil]

28. Damn! You've given away the plot!

Now they'll be after you - the Belgians will have their crack troops
on your doorstep before you get chance to

[Dead_Parrot]

29. Aha! Got you!

I'm a double agent. Pass the Hoegaarden...

[bananas]

6. You googled, and got the wrong answer

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_04/LymanVonHippel
...
This assertion is highly questionable because reprocessing is 10 times more costly than spent fuel storage. If nuclear power is to become more widely competitive, its cost must decrease, not increase.
...
Keeping the transuranic elements americium and curium mixed with plutonium in pyroprocessing would increase its radiation dose a hundred-fold but only to a level that would still be one thousand times lower than the IAEA’s self-protection standard.<13>
...
Indeed, a 1992 study commissioned jointly by the Departments of Energy and State showed a variety of ways to use a pyroprocessing plant to produce relatively pure plutonium.<15>
...

edit to add: It's more expensive than simply storing the waste, but it makes it easier for them to generate weapons-grade plutonium. Gee I wonder why they want to do it?

[Statistical]

8. Cost isn't the only metric.

Raw uranium costs only contribute <5% of energy cost from nuclear power. So doubling uranium costs is just a 5% power bill hike.

There is no economic reason to reprocess but there are plenty of peaceful non-economic ones.

* Reduced high level waste. Total waste is increased by high level (heat producing waste) is reduced significantly. The maximum storage of a repository is more based on decay heat than total tonnage.

* Reduced uranium requirements. For countries like US with significant uranium reserves this is a non-issue but many countries import 100% of their uranium. Reducing imports prevents flow of capital out of the country.

[Merchant Marine]

20. Unlike you, I went ahead and read the report that your report cited

The great problem with citing that report as an opposition to the pyroprocess is that the report, PROLIFERATION RESISTANCE ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR, dealt with the pyroprocess only as related to an experimental fuel potentially used in an experimental, automated reactor.

"As R&D moves ahead, it is important to keep proliferation resistance in perspective. Technology
characteristics are only one part of the total nonproliferation regime. Regardless of these
characteristics, the host country still has a responsibility to provide physical security as well as
materials control and accountancy. And ultimately only the international community can be
effective in discouraging nations that aspire to join the nuclear weapons club. Technology’s role is
to improve the effectiveness of traditional extrinsic safeguards measures and perhaps to provide a
level of transparency that will help enable the expansion of nuclear energy."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[kristopher]

26. Don't know where you got that but it wasn't referenced in the Lyman & von Hippel paper.

You quote is accurately cited, but that wasn't one of the references in the Lyman & von Hippel paper.

Their paper is an outstanding overview of the forces at work in this problem, and this is their conclusion:

Hopefully, Congress has learned as a result of its temporary enthusiasm and then disillusionment with GNEP that there are much worse alternatives to interim storage of spent fuel at U.S. nuclear power plants. Reprocessing, whether PUREX, UREX+, or pyroprocessing, would cost many times more and would convert one relatively simple and stable waste form into a variety of waste streams that must be managed, including contaminated equipment and materials from the reprocessing plant itself when it is decommissioned. It also creates a vast stockpile of separated plutonium that would make it possible for countries to deploy weapons quickly and massively in a time shorter than required to mobilize domestic and international opposition. These plutonium stockpiles could also become targets of theft for would-be nuclear terrorists.

In comparison, dry-cask storage of spent fuel, which is being used at U.S. nuclear power plants to handle the overflow from spent fuel storage pools that have reached capacity, is benign. Ninety-five percent of all U.S. spent fuel is at nuclear power plants that will operate for decades longer. At such sites, the added risk from the spent fuel is small in comparison to that from the fuel in the reactor cores and the spent fuel pools. If cooling water is lost to a reactor core, it will begin releasing vaporized fission products within minutes. If cooling water is lost from a spent fuel pond, recently discharged fuel would heat up to ignition temperature with hours. In contrast, the heat from several-year-old spent fuel in dry casks is carried away passively by the convection of the surrounding air. Also, because each dry cask contains only a small fraction of the radioactive material contained in a reactor core or spent fuel pool, even a successful terrorist attack on a dry cask would have a relatively limited impact.

Eventually, the spent fuel on U.S. sites will have to be removed or buried deep underground, but there is no need to panic. Committing the United States to reprocessing any time in the next several decades would be a costly and dangerous decision that might postpone but would not avoid the need for a geological repository.<32>

Reprocessing Revisited:The International Dimensions of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
Edwin Lyman and Frank N. von Hippel
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_04/LymanVonHippel

[Statistical]

30. Did you notice your own quote....

"In comparison, dry-cask storage of spent fuel, which is being used at U.S. nuclear power plants to handle the overflow from spent fuel storage pools that have reached capacity, is benign. ... Eventually, the spent fuel on U.S. sites will have to be removed or buried deep underground, but there is no need to panic.

I agree with the author the advantages of reprocessing are NOT ECONOMIC. Period. Reprocessed fuel is more expensive than nautral fuel. This has been proven over and over and over. The advantage of reprocessed fuel is efficiency. Since the US has massive uranium reserves and access to even more uranium in allied countries (Australia) reprocessing is costly and unnecessary.

The only other advantage of reprocessing is increasing efficiency of repository. By removing many of high decay heat isotopes the repository can store waste more efficiently. Long lived isotopes tend to be low heat and short lived istopes can be "reburned" in MOX fuel. A repository is not limited by raw tonage but by decay heat output.

However the US has NO REPOSITORY. It likely will be decades before one is built. There is no rush to reprocess. Spent fuel stored today can be reprocessed in 2040, or 2080 if necessary.

Given today the US has:
a) large supply of uranium
b) large land mass (for temporary storage)
c) existing nuclear plants (for securing spent fuel)
d) no repository

There is CURRENTLY no advantage to reprocessing fuel. Eventually as price of Uranium rises and/or a final repository opens this may change and we should revisit the issue. I am glad you believe this author is credible. Do you also agree that "dry-cask storage of spent fuel ... is benign"?

[kristopher]

31. The premise doesn't include building 10,000 more reactors...

It deals with what we are producing with the 500 we now have.

[Statistical]

32. Who is planning on building 10,000 more reactors?

Even most optimstic projections show a modest rise in nuclear power.
Maybe another 100 - 200 (net) or so over next 30 years.

[kristopher]

33. How much do YOU expect to build to meet our global noncarbon energy needs in 2030?

If we aren't sinking all this excess money into nuclear in order to meet climate change goals, then what is the point?

You claim that if we get the kinks ironed out we will have a cure for our energy needs in nuclear power. While you advocate a mix, if we focus on building out the nuclear, I don't think there is much doubt that it would negatively affect the deployment of renewables just as if we focus on the most economic solution, it will negatively impact the roll out of nuclear.

It would take at least 5000 plants just to displace the current coal generation within our 12.5TW global energy system. Add in demand growth to 17TW, replacing petroleum and natural gas, and I think 10,000 reactors is about right. Of course, that is only if the average size is about 1GW/85% CF.

[Statistical]

34. You are so binary. How about all of the above?

nuclear, wind, solar, throw in energy efficiency

where necessary use natural gas as oppose to oil/coal.
Some funding to fuel cells to some day make the nat gas we do use more efficient (50%-60% today's fuel cells maybe 80%+ tomorrow vs. 40% combined cycle turbines).

The "nuclear only is a cure" is your strawman not my claim.

A diverse set of alternative energy solutions combined with increased efficiency is the best method to reduce GHG.

Take solar for example. Today solar loses out to wind on virtually every metric. However we should still include solar because we will never know how effective it can become. Wind could top out at some point in the future where solar might not. By persuing both energy strategies we have a well balanced portfoilio of energy.

Just like balance portfoilio reduces volatility and risk in investments it does so with energy also.

[kristopher]

35. How many plants globally?

I said 10,00 is the proper number to aim for if you choose nuclear, you disagree, so what is the number that will fit appropriately into a system delivering 17 terawatts of power globally?

[Statistical]

36. Optimally I would say 1000. Realisticly we likely will expand to 500-600 globally.

Peak capacity is meaningless stat. What is more important is total energy delivered. That is where nuclear with its high capacity factor really shines.

[kristopher]

37. "Peak capacity is a meaningless stat"?

We have more than 600 coal plants just in the US so what is the rest of the world going to do?

What about petroleum and natural gas?

[Statistical]

7. You will learn that is pretty common for him. Nice debunking though. n/t

[bananas]

10. He didn't debunk it. nt

[joshcryer]

22. Yes he did.

[bananas]

2. And N. Korea just sank a S. Korean boat, killing 100 people

LBN: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4321306

[Nihil]

38. And my friend's cat has just had kittens.

Just thought that as we were adding random comments to the thread ...
:shrug:

[bananas]

4. South Korea's history of secret nuclear weapons research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_research_programs

South Korean nuclear research programs

In August 2004, South Korea revealed the extent of its highly secretive and sensitive nuclear research programs to the IAEA, including some experiments which were conducted without the obligatory reporting to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for by South Korea's safeguards agreement.<1> The failure to report was reported by the IAEA Secretariat to the IAEA Board of Governors;<2> however, the IAEA Board of Governors decided to not make a formal finding of noncompliance.<3>

Contents

* 1 Early Nuclear Ambitions
* 2 Post-NPT Programs
o 2.1 Previously unreported experiments
o 2.2 IAEA Response
o 2.3 Nuclear Powered Submarines
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links

Early Nuclear Ambitions

Under the direction of South Korea's Weapons Exploitation Committee, the country attempted to obtain plutonium reprocessing facilities following the pullout of the 26,000 American soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division in 1971.<4> However, under pressure from the United States, France eventually decided not to deliver a reprocessing facility to South Korea in 1975.<4> South Korea's nuclear weapons research program effectively ended on April 23, 1975 with its ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.<4>
Post-NPT Programs

The South Korean government insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.<5>

Previously unreported experiments

In 1982, scientists at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute performed an experiment in which they extracted several milligrams of plutonium. Although plutonium has uses other than the manufacture of weapons, the United States later insisted that South Korea not attempt to reprocess plutonium in any way. In exchange, the US agreed to transfer reactor technology and give financial assistance to South Korea's nuclear energy program. It was revealed in 2004 that some South Korean scientists continued some studies; for example, in 1983 and 1984 Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute was conducting chemical experiments related to the handling of spent fuel that crossed the reprocessing boundary.<6>

Later, in an experiment at the same facility in 2000, scientists enriched 200 milligrams of uranium to near-weapons grade (up to 77 percent) using laser enrichment.<6><7> The South Korean government claimed that this research was conducted without its knowledge.<5> While uranium enriched to 77 percent is usually not considered weapons-grade, it could theoretically be used to construct a nuclear weapon.<8><9> HEU with a purity of 20% or more is usable in a weapon, but this route is less desirable because far more material is required to obtain critical mass;<10> thus, the Koreans would have needed to produce much more material to construct a nuclear weapon.<5> This event and the earlier extraction of plutonium went unreported to the IAEA until late 2004.<6>

IAEA Response

Following Seoul's disclosure of the above incidents, the IAEA launched a full investigation into South Korea's nuclear activities. In a report issued on November 11, 2004, the IAEA described the South Korean government's failure to report its nuclear activities a matter of 'serious concern', but accepted that these experiments never produced more than very small amounts of weaponizeable fissile material. The Board of Governors decided to not make a formal finding of noncompliance, and the matter was not referred to the Security Council.<3>

Pierre Goldschmidt, former head of the department of safeguards at the IAEA, has called on the Board of Governors to adopt generic resolutions which would apply to all states in such circumstances and has argued "political considerations played a dominant role in the board’s decision" to not make a formal finding of non-compliance.<11>

Nuclear Powered Submarines

With respond to the second North Korean nuclear test. Sources confirm that ROK is seeking nuclear powered submarines to counter North Korea.<12>

[kristopher]

27. A large part of what success was achieved by The Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty

is attributable to the US nuclear umbrella. As we drift from the BiPolar US/USSR model through the UniPolar stage of US military dominance it is very important that we ask what kind of world do we want to shape.

Will we move to a place where the nations of the world can come together better than we have in the past and learn to address global issues with a reasonably united front, or will we fracture, splinter; regionalizing conflict and tying in knots our efforts to address the most pressing problems facing us?

Now imagine a world with 10,000 plus more reactors than today and consider the long term, unintended consequences.

[ConcernedCanuk]

13. Actually, I think we know that nuclear power was an off-shoot of nuclear weapons.

.
.
.

USA did NOT develop the nuclear power thing for electricity.

The USA developed it to kill on a massive basis.

And that they did.

[Statistical]

15. US developed nuclear weapons to kill things...

from that came peaceful uses for the technology like nuclear energy and nuclear medicine.

It didn't require knowledge of nuclear energy or nuclear medicine to build nuclear weapons.

Of course many inventions began as military technology and adopted peaceful purposes later (we are unfortunately a very violent species).

Rocket for example were used in warfare before they were used to launch the first man-made objects into space.

[ConcernedCanuk]

16. (we are unfortunately a very violent species)

.
.
.

sadly;

too true

[Statistical]

17. Which is another reason why global warming & resource decline will be bad.

Push comes to shove mankind will likely end up "solving" it the same way to solved the majority of problems in our history.

It won't be peaceful.

[joshcryer]

23. Exactly, the single most important issue with regards to the effects of AGW is war.

When people start getting displaced because of sea level rise there are going to be a lot of people not wanting to take them in. This will create resource conflicts. And that's not the worst of it, with changing seasonal weather and crop reductions and plauge outbreaks, it's going to get real bad real quick.

[Statistical]

25. Add to that peak oil, break down of international commerce, hoarding, and nationalism.

It is going to hit the human race like the Black Plague.

Runaway Global Warming won't kill off the *entire* human race. If it gets to that point those with military force will use it to ensure it is "others" who die off as the consequence of our bad decisions.

The worst case scenario is will "solve" global warming with a nuclear exchange. Massive particulate release (fallout) results in global cooling along with destruction of majority of industrial capacity means a falling concentration of CO2.

[NNadir]

18. It's Pretty Funny How Anti-nukes Don't Give A Rat's Ass About Oil's Link to Current Wars

It says everything one needs to know about how they rate their own paranoia about what is NOT observed over the reality of people who actually die as a result of their indifference.

In the last ten terrible years, we have seen lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of death and destruction from dangerous fossil fuel war, dangerous fossil fuel terrorism, and dangerous fossil fuel waste, all of it real, none of it merely supposed.

Typically the anti-nuke mentality COULDN'T. CARE. LESS. About these deaths.

Nuclear technology need not be perfect to be vastly superior to all the stuff anti-nukes COULDN'T. CARE. LESS. about.

It only needs to be vastly superior.

I note, since unlike ANY anti-nukes who write here, I am literate about technology, that the ONLY realistic path to nuclear weapons disarmament is through the use of nuclear power. There are zero technologies, for instance, that convert weapons grade plutonium into non-weapons grade technology that do NOT involve reactors.

Most of the nuclear weapons material from nuclear weapons that were dismantled in the 1990's and 2000's ended up in reactors, where it worked to slow the advance of climate change, something else the anti-nukes COULDN'T. CARE. LESS. ABOUT.

Here have a picture of those happy days in 1945 Dreseden, a city set afire by dangerous fossil fuel war:

[ConcernedCanuk]

39. Dresden - as you probably well know, was just a sick show of "power" from the USA

.
.
.

"we'll show you not to fuck with the USA"

women and children be damned - USA was just beginning to be the terrorist nation they still are today

Fuck with the USA -

"WE'LL KILL ANYBODY!!"

Ask the Iraqis

Ask the Afghans

Ask the Pakistanis

Ask ANYONE!

The USA's war-machine will kill anyone that gets in its way

Will it ever stop?

I doubt it

(sigh)