RE: Russia: Iran May Seek More Reactors

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

> the RMBK specially suited for this purpose because on-line refueling, in
> theory, permits production of low-burnup, high-percentage Pu-239 (ie.
> weapons-grade) Pu. 
In practice, it depends whether the fueling machine can "shuffle" the fuel
rapidly enough to avoid excessive burnup throughout the core. If not, then
only a few fuel channels could potentially be exploited in this way, thus
greatly reducing the possible yield of WPu.
I have no idea what the situation is with actual operating RBMKs.

Jaro
PS. see also J. Whitlock's web posting on this topic (wrt CANDUs) at URL
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cz725/cnf.htm#j2      and
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cz725/cnf.htm#x1     and
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cz725/cnf.htm#x2 


> ----------
> From: 	Michael McNaughton[SMTP:mcnaught@lanl.gov]
> Reply To: 	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> Sent: 	Tuesday January 18, 2000 9:52 AM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	Re: Russia: Iran May Seek More Reactors
> 
> At 12:03 PM 1/17/00 -0600, you wrote:
> >I suppose because the RMBK can be easily
> >used to produce weapons grade plutonium 
> 
> In what way is the RMBK specially suited for this purpose? I thought that
> any source of thermal neutrons could be used to make Pu-239.
> 
> mike
> Mike McNaughton
> email: mcnaught@LANL.gov or mcnaughton@LANL.gov
> phone: (505)667-6130
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