RE: RADSAFE digest 3135

["Kent, Michael D" <Michael.D.Kent@nspco.com>]

Norm,

Currently Canada is starting the first experiments in the feasibility of
using Pu in a reactor.  My personnel opinion on stopping reprocessing due to
the production of Pu, was and is, another method by anti nuclear activist to
shut down nuclear power plants.   Britain and France currently reprocess
fuel, and I have not heard of those facility's losing enough Pu to make a
bomb.  

If a terrorist organization in the US broke into a reprocessing plant, took
some Pu, how far would they get?  What would they do with it?  It's not like
you can pour some in a container, slap some charges on it and Boom!  RONCO
instant atomic bomb.

Step one, stop reprocessing.  
Step two, take away their ability to dispose of spent fuel.  
Step three, watch the power plants shut down.

As far as Mobile Chernobyl - I have a common sense question for you.  If
these spent fuel cells do not produce enough heat to warrant some method of
forced cooling (i.e. cooling by ambient loss is sufficient), why in the
world would they spontaneously combust in an accident.  The shipping
container's integrity would not be compromised by the accident (proven), so
even in the most remote possibility (unrealistic worst case scenarios) that
it did catch on fire, the container is still sealed, so how would the
effluents be released to the environment.

Michael D Kent RRPT
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