Harold A. Feiveson

Fission Power: An Evolutionary Strategy

Motivated by concerns about the difficulty of safeguarding the large flows of plutonium in a breeder reactor fuel cycle, we explore the resource and economic implications of a strategy in which there is no nuclear weapons-usable material in fresh reactor fuel. The strategy involves the deployment of already developed types of advanced converter reactors which, unlike the breeder, can be operated effectively on proliferation-resistant once-through fuel cycles. Advanced converter reactors could be much more uranium-efficient on once-through fuel cycles than current systems and therefore could compete economically with breeders up to very high uranium prices. If necessary, the uranium requirements of an advanced converter reactor system could be reduced much further with the recycling of isotopically denatured uranium, but any commitment to a closed fuel cycle would be unnecessary for many decades.

Disposition of Separated Plutonium

In the immediate term, plutonium, recovered from dismantled nuclear warheads and from civil reprocessing plants, will have to be stored securely, and under international safeguards if possible. In the intermediate term, the principal alternatives for disposition of this plutonium are: irradiation in mixed‐oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies in commercial unmodified light‐water reactors or in specially adapted light‐water reactors capable of operating with full cores of MOX fuel or incorporation into a matrix with high‐level waste (HLW). Of these three options, blending plutonium into HLW as it is being glassified for final disposal is probably the least costly and the least burdensome to safeguards resources.

A CUTOFF IN THE PRODUCTION OF FISSILE MATERIAL

Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva is now considering a convention to prohibit the production of fissile material for weapons. While the UN General Assembly has consistently supported resolutions calling for such a cutoff since 1978, the recent discussions are principally the result of a proposal by President Clinton on September 27, 1993, for a {open_quotes}multilateral convention prohibiting the production of highly enriched uranium or plutonium for nuclear explosive purposes or outside of international safeguards.{close_quotes} ({open_quotes}International safeguards{close_quotes} refers to verification measures by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] to assure that nuclear material is not being used for weapons or other explosive purposes.) Such a convention would allow states which already have stocks of unsafeguarded fissile material to maintain them outside of safeguards, but it would allow future production of fissile material only if the material is safeguarded. The authors examine five points in order to better define some poorly understood technical and political issues: (1) the proper scope of a cutoff convention; (2) weapons stockpiles and requirements in the affected states; (3) effective verification; (4) cost-benefit analysis; and (5) how to prevent competition with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. 75 refs., 1 tab.

It’s Time to Give Up on Breeder Reactors

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, nuclear energy advocates have dreamed of a reactor that could produce more fuel than it used. More than 60 years and

A skeptic's view of nuclear energy

100 billion later, that vision remains as far from reality as ever.

A Low-Threshold Nuclear Test Ban

Dædalus Fall 2009 This paper, while skeptical of the robust nuclear renaissance many in the nuclear industry now predict, is not anti-nuclear. Indeed, nuclear power has many attractions. It is a mature and well-established technology, unlike, for example, carbon capture and storage. Improvements in its operation and reliability in recent years have been striking. It produces little carbon dioxide and can clearly, in principle, play a signi1⁄2cant role in combating global warming. Compared to coalgenerated electricity in particular, it is relatively clean, producing almost no emissions. Its energy output is not intermittent, as is the case with wind and solar. And though the overall costs of nuclear are rising, they are arguably competitive with other low-greenhousegas electric-generation alternatives.1 However, despite these many attractions, nuclear power seems to go forward only where governments heavily subsidize its operation, such as in China and India today. As Henry Sokolski has pointed out, “No private bank has yet chosen to fully 1⁄2nance a new nuclear reactor build; no private insurer has yet chosen to insure a nuclear plant against third party off-site damages.”2 In the United States, almost all of the several nuclear plants that are now being considered for future deployment are in states with regulated utilities, where nuclear does not have to compete directly with other generation sources and where rate payers in the state assume much of any risk. Nuclear power growth is stagnant or negative in most of the industrialized countries, and there is still today, outside of China and India, almost no nuclear power in the developing countries. In 2007, world nuclear electricity generation dropped by 2 percent; in 2008, for the 1⁄2rst time in nuclear power’s history, no new reactor was connected to the grid anywhere. This should all give one pause in dreaming of a nuclear renaissance. Several factors are pulling back on efforts to expand nuclear power: the very high capital costs inherent in nuclear power, especially given the large size of reactors driven by economies of scale; a continuing strong aversion to nuclear power by skeptical publics concerned with safety, with unresolved questions on how to handle radioactive wastes, and with the risks of nuclear proliferation, despite some recent improvements in favorability ratings; and the rise of Harold A. Feiveson

Nuclear energy without reprocessing: A future made possible by energy conservation

I T h e testing of nuclear weapons is currently banned in all environments except underground by the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Furthermore, the signed but not yet ratified Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974 limits the yields of U.S. and Soviet underground tests to no more than 150 kilotons (kt). Recently, the Soviet Union has dramatized, with an 18-month unilateral testing moratorium, its interest in banning all underground nuclear explosions. The Reagan Administration, supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nuclear weapons laboratories, has, however, flatly rejected the desirability of such a Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB) in the foreseeable future. A spokesman for the Administration has summarized its position on a CTB as follows:

Breaking the fuel/weapons connection

The achievements of energy conservation and the promise of future progress have rendered economically unattractive for many decades the separation of plutonium from spent reactor fuel (reprocessing) and its recycle into breeder or light water reactors. Despite this, reprocessing and recycle are already underway in Europe and Japan. If unchecked, these activities, by the end of the century, will lead to an annual flow in routine commerce of tens of thousands of kilograms of separated plutonium, a circumstance which would pose a grave threat to international security. However, continued stagnation of nuclear power programs in much of the world, due significantly to greatly reduced growth rates in electricity demand, will underscore the economic folly of reprocessing and recycle and may eventually encourage their abandonment.

Reducing U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals

The production of weapons-usable material for both military and civilian purposes must be constrained to the maximum extent possible if efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals and to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries and to terrorist groups are to succeed. To this end, the authors propose the following: (1) separation of plutonium from spent reactor fuel and the use of plutonium and highly enriched uranium to fuel civilian nuclear reactors be halted indefinitely; and (2) nuclear-weapons states halt production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and put their existing stocks of civilian fissile material and facilities capable of producing such material under international safeguards. These two measures - one relating to the spread of nuclear weapons to additional national and to terrorist groups (horizontal proliferation) and one relating to the expansion of already existing nuclear weapons arsenals (vertical proliferation) - are linked politically and technically. It is time to combine them in a single package.

The Proliferation Risks of Plutonium Mines

A reduction of U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals to one-tenth their present sizes would maintain deterrent capabilities while exerting a stabilizing influence on the balance of terror.