Nuclear reprocessing, which takes spent fuel from reactors and turns it into reusable uranium and much smaller amounts of plutonium, is a long-range business.
Clean-up has taken the place of the business of plutonium production.
In the near term, Inert Matrix Fuels (IMF) are currently viable options, capable to contribute in reducing the proliferation risk associated to nowadays separated plutonium stockpiles in a business-as-usual nuclear energy scenario where a prominent role is still played by Light Water Reactors (LWR) in a once-through fuel cycle strategy.
If, for example, you are looking to replenish your stock of weapons-grade plutonium, be sure to conduct business only with senior officers of the Russian military.
But as the British company now known as BNFL prepares to tackle the American problems, an embarrassing lapse has emerged back home in its core business, which is producing plutonium fuel.
But getting hold of the right sort of uranium or plutonium is the biggest barrier to entry into the bomb-making business.
The system, based on fraud, is now collapsing from its internal inconsistencies.Christopher LyonNewport Beach, CaliforniaMOX trialSIR – The Sellafield MOX plutonium-fuel plant is, as you say, a "wheeze" to sustain the fiction that separating plutonium from spent nuclear fuel is somehow a viable 21st-century business ("With one bound", December 1st).
But perhaps the most elaborate ruse of all involved Mossad agents buying uranium ore, a substance needed to produce plutonium, from a Belgian mining company under the front of an Italian business dealing in chemicals.
The rest are bused in by schools, businesses or government offices.In this section Playing with plutonium Nasty weapons Some peace, no development The unlikely heiress Members only Castles in the sky Hitting the slopes Reprints Related items Counterfeit goods: Psst.
Because the amount of plutonium is infinitesimally small, plutonium toxicity is of no concern in this context.
