The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a legacy of the cold war. From 1950 through the 1980s the facility produced tons of weapons-grade Plutonium to make tens of thousands of bombs. Much like the Megatons to Megawatts program, Savannah River is changing its ways and will soon make zero Carbon fuel from materials intended for mass destruction. In August of 2007, construction began on a facility that will convert Plutonium intended for weapons into Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel. When mixed with Uranium Oxide, the Plutonium creates a hybrid Pu-U fuel called Mixed Oxide.
Like Uranium, Plutonium-239 (Pu239) is a fissile material that splits when it absorbs a neutron producing large amounts of heat that can be used to produce steam to turn a turbine. Pu239 can also be made into a bomb. Many of the bombs produced during the cold war used Plutonium. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the two countries were left with many tons of Plutonium that had been produced at facilities like SRS.
Swords to Plowshares
In 2000, the US and Russia agreed to dispose of 34 tons each of weapons-grade Pu239. To put that in perspective, it only takes about 9 pounds of Pu239 to make a nuclear warhead. By disposing of a total of 68 tons of Plutonium, the two countries will be destroying more than 15,000 potential nuclear weapons. Of course, antinuclear activists are so twisted in their train of thought that they will tell you MOX fuel runs the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation even though I just told you it will destroy 15,000 bombs while still in its infant stages. Such is the thought process of the antinuke and I’ve come to expect such backward logic from their ranks.
There were several options available to do so including Vitrification (mixture with highly radioactive materials to ‘dispose’ of the Plutonium), MOX fuel, and Fast Breeder Reactor Fuel (FBR), which is a topic for another day. The US chose to use the MOX option mainly because the fuel can be used at 104 existing Light Water Reactors in the US. The Russians have chosen to make FBR fuel to work in their reactors.
The Savannah River recycling facility is expected to begin operation in 2014 and will recycle 3.5 tons of Plutonium per year (just under 800 bombs annually). The site will cost about $5 billion from beginning to end. While that number might seem high, it’s certainly not easy to put a dollar amount on nuclear disarmament. Also, the swords-to-plowshares concept will allow us to harvest the destructive energy inside in a peaceful, and environmentally friendly manner. While we currently get 10% of our electricity from Uranium bombs, the addition of Plutonium to the practice provides for even more disarmament and clean energy.
Potential for Spent Fuel Reprocessing
In addition to nuclear disarmament, the Savannah River Site also holds to potential to address the problem of spent nuclear fuel. While the antinuke will tell you that spent fuel is a million-year curse, the truth is that once-bunt nuclear fuel is a valuable and 96% recyclable energy resource. After spending 6 years in a reactor, LWR Uranium fuel is about 96% U-235, U-238, or Pu-239 all of which can be recycled and reused. The Savannah River recycling facility could easily be expanded to include spent fuel recycling which would drastically reduce the volume of high level waste and also eliminate the need for further mining of Uranium which would also serve to keep Uranium prices low in a time of rising natural gas prices (which drive the cost of electricity). In this regard, the SRS could serve to make operating costs of nuclear power plants even lower than they already are.
Shortly after taking office, President Obama canceled the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository. Under The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the federal government is required by law to address the issue of used nuclear fuel. After the Yucca decision, the president appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to come up with alternative solutions. With a facility already under construction at SRS, and $24 billion remaining in the Nuclear Waste Fund, it would seem to make so much sense that even the government can’t ignore the potential of the SRS site. Also, while piggy-backing on a disarmament program, the president could easily address the moot political point critics will raise about proliferation risk. It would not be surprising if you hear in the next few years that the Blue Ribbon Panel has chosen reprocessing as an option to address spent nuclear fuel and chooses Savannah River as the site.
With the renewable nature of nuclear power and the continued emphasis on global nuclear disarmament, the Savannah River recycling facility will play a key role in the economy, energy, the environment, and the avoidance of nuclear war.
Image Credit
Plutonium Solution courtesy of Wikimedia Commons published under the CC license.
8 Comments
Nice post Jack. I’ve read that MOX fuel once passed through a reactor is not able to be recycled. I can’t understand why this would be the case. Can you comment on what happens to MOX after it’s been in a reactor?
An excellent question. I’ve tried to find something technical, but from what I can tell it’s economics preventing multiple iterations. Given the availability of weapons-grade materials, spent fuel, Thorium, U-238 for Fast Breeders, and remaining known Uranium Ore deposits I would suspect that it would be very long time before a second recycling would be economically justified.
That not true. Each cycle becomes increasingly difficult, so that you wouldn’t recycle indefinitely. Only once or twice would probably be economical. After that, however, you could take what’s left and run it through a fast-spectrum reactor to burn up the actinides.
Please give some proof that 99% of material from spent fuel can be recycled. 0% of the plutonium and uranium separated from spent fuel in the UK is reused and France dumps most of the reprocessed uranium (RepU) from the reprocessing of its spent fuel in Russia. Just a couple of weeks ago the French sent another shipload of RepU to Russia, via St. Petersburg. There are other was liquid, solid and gaseous waste streams that can’t be “recycled.” Even the Argonne Lab model of US reprocessing sticks the RepU in a box for future disposal. Thanks for explaining your99% claim and demonstrating where anything approaching this this is taking place.
Tom,
You are correct that 99% is an erroneous figure. The real figure is closer to 96%. That is the fraction of the used fuel that consists of uranium or plutonium, which can be recycled if desired.
No additional “proof” is needed. The physics is well understood, and U-238, recycled U-235, and Pu have all been successfully used as fuel in nuclear reactors of various designs. Political decisions in the UK are irrelevant to what is technically possible.
Contrary to your claim, France does not “dump” its recovered uranium in Russia. Instead, this material is sent to Russia for re-enrichment. RepU requires a dedicated facility to process, since it is more difficult to handle and requires higher enrichment than natural uranium. France has been using RepU for fuel in its Cruas nuclear power plant since the eighties.
Although France uses only a small fraction of the recovered uranium as fuel, the rest is stored as a strategic uranium resource stockpile for future energy needs. The concept is much like the US’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, except that a strategic uranium reserve could supply much more energy for a much longer time.
France uses the plutonium that is recovered from its spent fuel in 20 of its nuclear reactors, there are about 30 reactors in Europe that are using MOX fuel. MOX has also been used to a very limited extent in US reactors.
Thanks Brian and Tom, I made the correction.
I’ll add that the Japanese signed a contract earlier this month to buy MOX from Areva.
The reason for “once through Pu” fuel cycle (instead of twice or more iterations) is the ever increasing fraction of non fissile Pu isotopes. Used uranium fuel consists of about 93 % U-238, 5 % stable/non stable fission products and slightly less than 1 % of Pu as well as U-235 (and a small amount of minor actinides) depending on the burn up level.
About 2/3 of the Pu isotopes in used uranium fuel are fissile. If this material is reused as MOX the fissile part will decrease to about 40 % at the and of the next fuel cycle.
As uranium is cheap, even the once through Pu cycle is not a viable option if to ask an economist. Thus, reprocessing of spent MOX fuel with an even less fissile atoms is not an option. Today spent MOX fuel is stored until we figure out the best way to utilize its potential as fuel resource.
Further reading (or looking) please check out pp 16-17 in this document: http://www.analys.se/lankar/Bakgrunder/2009/bakgrund_nr2_branslecykler.pdf
You’ll get no argument from me that traditional Uranium fuel is more economical than MOX in terms of $/kWhr produced. However, when you account for the value of reducing the stockpiles of nuclear weapons and drastically reducing the volume of high level waste, the numbers make much more sense.