[ RadSafe ] MOX Fuel and latest Leuren Moret injection intoFukushima

Fri Mar 25 12:09:05 CDT 2011

I'm not by any means an expert on the subject by any means. It's something I
was taught 35 years ago. A 1000 MWe light water reactor gives rise to about
25 tons of used fuel a year, containing something on the order of 300
kilograms of plutonium. The most common isotope formed being Pu-239. The
second most abundant isotope formed being Pu-240.  

All plutonium isotopes are fissionable with fast neutrons, two with slow
neutrons - Pu-239 playing the major role in a conventional LWR.

Something like half of the plutonium created in the reactor core is burned
in situ and certainly towards the end of core life is accounts for about one
third of the total heat output of a light water reactor. 

I could be wrong.  It's happened before.

LA

You mentioned a significant amount of energy in LWR is from the Pu fission.
Can you provide some values per reactor design?

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Larry Addis
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 8:22 AM
To: 'The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] MOX Fuel and latest Leuren Moret injection
intoFukushima

Engineering friends look somewhat confused when I explained LWR's don't just
make plutonium in principle. A significant amount of energy produced by
commercial LWR's actually does comes from plutonium fission. It's no
accident, but by design as it were. 

LA

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of George Stanford
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 10:25 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] MOX Fuel and latest Leuren Moret injection into
Fukushima

About 1.2% of spent fuel is plutonium anyway.  While MOX
might double or triple that, there is no significant increase in
hazard.  The hazard is in the fission products, which are the
same either way.

-- George Stanford
Reactor physicist, retired

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

At 04:54 AM 3/25/2011, Roger Helbig wrote:
How much plutonium is in MOX?   Does it present a significantly greater
hazard than the uranium dioxide in conventional nuclear fuel rods?  The
anti-nuclear community is making a major issue about the unit with MOX in
the spent fuel pool and now I believe that there are concerns with that
reactor's containment integrity as well.  The anti-nukes make this sound
like the reactor being more potentially deadly than Chernobyl.  Thanks.

Roger

PS - Leuren Moret has put an article into the Japan Times - if any of you
have Japanese connections, please, make them aware of how much of a fraud
that Moret is - she is an exceptional self-promoter, typical anything for a
"buck" or in her case angling for a free plane ticket, hotel and food (and
plenty of bottled water if she goes to Tokyo even though she is about 65 and
clearly not pregnant or a nursing mother)

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20040523x2.html

Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette
By LEUREN MORET
Special to The Japan Times

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