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What is Weapons Grade
I think we have all allowed this term to get a sloppy meaning. To me weapons grade U means a high percentage of U235 such that it will sustain criticality from fast neutrons. This usually means high purity and no contaminants or poisons present in the material.
With Plutonium the term seems to be used to indicate some unspecified percentage of Pu239 mixed in with U238, fission products, and Pu238. Okay, what makes this mix weapons grade? To make a weapon out of this requires chemical processing to remove contaminants to the Pu and isotope separation to get rid of the Pu238 and any other non-desirable Pu isotopes. Either that or careful burn-up times to maximize the Pu 239:Pu238 ratio. What economic factor in a breeder reactor used for fuel production indicates this is taking place? It is my understanding the maximum Pu yield is from a long burn up and this skews the PU toward Pu238.
Lets use the descriptive language to be descriptive and not sloppy convenient.
Zack Clayton
Ohio EPA - DERR
email: zack.clayton@epa.state.oh.us
voice: 614-644-3066
fax: 614-460-8249
>>> "Harmon, Terry O'Devah (ONF) " <onf@bechteljacobs.org> 08/16/00 09:14AM >>>
The Clinch River Breeder Reactor was supposed to reprocess it and turn it
into burnable fuel. The waste portion would have been greatly reduced.
Unfortunately, it would also produce a lot of bomb grade material, so
President Carter scrapped the project.
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