Emil, a couple of comments below......
Jaro
-----Original Message-----
From: Emil [mailto:kerrembaev@YAHOO.COM]
Sent: Tuesday January 21, 2003 11:56 PM
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Power Plant was declared bankrupt.
Greetings.
As I remember it is BN-350 (BN = Fast Neutron:
350 megawatt electrical output) "Breeder" type reactor plant was used to supply production of the fresh water from the Caspian Sea.
1. Reduced demand for the electricity = people are drinking/used less water?
2. Breeders have low (positive) fuel cost fraction because of their "An expanding fuel
cycle model" = They produce more fuel than they burn .
3. What do they do with the accumulating "new" fuel???? It is not a weapon grade but it is still a highly enriched PU.
>>>>>>>>>> the accumulating "new" fuel stays in the fuel rods, either in the reactor or in some spent fuel storage area, until & unless that spent fuel is reprocessed. Material from the reprocessing can then be used for manufacture of new fuel, which is then put back into the reactor. If there is enough of the excess "new" fuel, it can be used to make additional fuel for ordinary light water reactors, thus avoiding having to mine large amounts of uranium for enrichment plants.
----------
Emil.
P.S.
One thing when a radiography companyor medical with goes bankrupt, another thing when a Breeder
Reactor after working up for 25 years.
First case: A few of Co or Cs sources get lost and destroyed before the local agency recover it
or in case of medical company the IAEA fetchs a high mountain rescue recovery expedition.
Second case: a few hundreds tons of Pu get lost and never recovered.....
IAEA are you listening or you are so busy chasing empty artillery shells down south......
>>>>>>>>>> the quantity of Pu from a small 350 MW breeder reactor would not be anywhere near "hundreds of tons." Such large quantities would be more typical of the combined stocks of a large national nuclear program with at least a dozen large reactors. Also, until the spent fuel is reprocessed, it remains extremely radioactive, providing a high degree of self-protection against theft.
--------------
>>
ALMATY, Kazakhstan AP - Jan 16 - The only nuclear
power plant in the
former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan was declared
bankrupt Thursday
by a court after accumulating unbearable debts.
The Mangyishlak plant in western Kazakhstan was
driven into the red
because of reduced demand for energy and low
prices enforced by local
anti-monopoly authorities there, said Valikhan
Asambayev, who was
appointed to bring the plant back to
profitability.
>>
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