The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > India’s fast breeder nuclear reactors and Australian uranium: an absence of safeguards? > Comments

India’s fast breeder nuclear reactors and Australian uranium: an absence of safeguards? : Comments

By Marko Beljac, published 17/8/2007

In negotiations with India the government must state quite categorically that no Australian nuclear material may end up in fast breeder reactors.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All
Absolutely nothing to worry about Marko. Bonsai has got an IOU from the Indian PM (anyone actually know his name, I didn't)?

Sure, sell it to anyone, the old man of rusty wire will protect us. When India attacks Pakistan Howard can just ring them up and tell them to stop can't he? Perhaps he wants them to do that to get Bin L. Assuming he's not living in LA that is.

Seriously, India? Russia? Who next? Iran, Iraq, Korea, China, US, Tasmania, the Northern Territory? Oops, the NT is for dumping the waste so they already get enough don't they?
Posted by pegasus, Friday, 17 August 2007 2:17:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
HooRoo Pegasus

Dream on NPT lovers who are being bamboozled by the First Five.

But seriously, I have to agree - with Peg.

Australia can safely supply Uranium to such nice countries as Russia and China because they are members of the pre NPT First Five Club. This Club (US, Russia, UK, France and China) all tested nuclear weapons by 1964 and before the NPT (1968 onwards). So it was OK for nuclear weapons to proliferate to THEM but not to anyone else (except Israel - Condi's boss).

But naturally we can't supply to India because Rudd can't (yet) split Labor over it.

Lets not let realities clash with perfectly vacuous principles. The fact that:
- India will never renounce the Bomb (because China and Pakistan have it);
- India has a non-proliferation record second to none (even the US passed expertise and test data to the UK and probably to Israel. Russia passed expertise, hardware and plans to China who passed it to Pakistan who passed it to Iran...));

All we need to know is that India is not one of the First Five Club. All those members are beyond reproach because they are all supposed to be happily disarming under the NPT regime of idealistic miracles.

In return for the First Fives disarmament dream nobody else should dream of having the Bomb (except the US's little buddy - sorry Aussies not you - we mean Israel is the preferred A+ little buddy ... ;)

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/
Posted by plantagenet, Friday, 17 August 2007 3:22:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You have decent understanding about workings of fast breeder reactors but, you do not understand the separation plan. India can use reprocessed plutonium only in safeguarded reactors.

Now coming to your point that India will use plutonium obtained from fuel supplied by Australia for weapons is base less:

1) India has no intention of placing any fast breeder reactor in civilian domain [as of now]. Apart from the current 2 fast breeders even the next 4 breeders that will be constructed by 2020 are under military domain. The reactors will not be safeguarded so they cannot use plutonium from imported fuel.

2) So what will India do by reprocessing spent fuel if it doesn’t plan to put breeders under safeguards? What is the purpose of reprocessing?

a) Waste Management will be very easy in medium to long term.

b) It can use spent fuel from safeguarded LWR/BWR reactors [has 3 - 4% of U235 which is more than enough for PHWR] in safeguarded PHWR reactors after reprocessing the spent fuel.

c) It can reprocess that spent fuel from PHWR reactors into plutonium and create MOX fuel to use either in LWR/BWR or PHWR reactors.

d) It can use reprocessed reactor grade plutonium as initial driver fuel in AHWR (thorium reactor) whose construction is about start in late 2007/early 2008 [already passed design, environmental and safety reviews].

3) Regarding bombs and diversion of material: We already have enough unsafeguarded plutonium to build a super power size nuclear weapon's arsenal. We are in no hurry to build all those bombs as we are building small bombs with big bang economically. All 5 [500 MWe] breeders under operation put together can produce plutonium with purity of >98% for at least [on lower end] 250-500 bombs per year over and above our current capacity and fissile material stock.

We need US support today. We need them only for next 30 years but, US will need India for at least next 100 years.

The choice is yours. You are with India or you are against India. You must choose among the only two options avaliable.
Posted by satish, Saturday, 18 August 2007 4:37:37 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
No foreign safeguarded fuel will end up in any unsafeguarded reactor or reprocessing plant or fast breeder.
That is the whole point of the separation plan the Indians negotiated with the US. There will be a military side and a civilian side.
No material or technology will move from the civilian to the military (though realistically, since the personnel will move freely, technology absorption will occur).

India will construct a brand new, IAEA safeguarded, Plutonium reprocessing facility to handle the spent fuel from the safeguarded reactors.
This plutonium will be under IAEA seal and will be used only in other safeguarded reactors.

It is by no means confirmed that all 4 planned fast breeders will be on the military side. Two are confirmed for the IGCAR facility at Madras (which appears to have been used in the past for the production of weapons grade plutonium using the 2 PHWRs already located there). This facility will remain out of IAEA purview.

The other two fast breeders might very well be IAEA safeguarded and used with plutonium produced from imported fuel. This will be up to the exporting country.
Russia has already granted reprocessing rights for the spent fuel from the VVER units it is building in India.
Other nations may follow. The alternative is to accept the spent fuel rods back, something many suppliers are reluctant to do.

None of this safeguarded Plutonium will end up in weapon cores. The IAEA and probably inspectors from the supplier countries will ensure this. The purpose of breeding U233 and Pu239 in the blankets of the fast breeder is to produce fissile material for nuclear energy - electricity not bombs.

The traditional "once through" burning of Uranium is wasteful.. leaving most of the energy still in the spent fuel. Fast breeders allow 50 times more energy to be extracted. Using Thorium may allow 600 times more energy to be extracted, with one additional benefit: Using Thorium reactors there will be at least a ten-fold reduction of radioactivity in the waste products after 100 years, and a 10,000 fold reduction after 500 years.
Posted by john frum, Saturday, 18 August 2007 10:20:04 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
john frum,

DAE chief has already said that there is no need to ever put fast breeders under safeguards.

http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/full_story.php?content_id=87466&spf=true
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070130/43/6bmoo.html
http://www.igcar.ernet.in/press_releases/press11.htm

Don't expect India to place Fast Breeders under safeguards atleast until 2025 or 2030 if you are luckey.
Posted by satish, Sunday, 19 August 2007 12:36:19 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Depends on now many AHWRs the DAE wishes to build.
The AHWR uses PuO2-ThO2 MOX and ThO2-U233O2 MOX in different pins of the same fuel cluster.
The U233 has to come from a breeder and having a few of them on the civilian side will speed things up.
Intellectual Property concerns may be handled like the Brazilians did at Resende - IAEA at the entry and exit and screens shielding sensitive equipment
Posted by john frum, Sunday, 19 August 2007 10:18:38 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy