Plutonium can be obtained from special purpose plutonium production reactors, or as a byproduct of commercial power or research reactors. This doesnt mean you cant make a bomb from reactor grade plutonium. Economic comparison of reload costs, using free plutonium discount rate 5 % 76 24. All reactor produced plutonium is weaponsusable, but nuclear weapons designers prefer to use plutonium with a very high percentage of plutonium 239 and a low percentage of plutonium 240. Plutonium halflives, and weapongrade and reactorgrade.
The blankets of thermal reactors are known to accumulate plutonium with an isotope composition close to that of weapon grade plutonium. However, the value of the plutonium would undoubtedly be far. The objective of this thesis work is to utilize computational models to reliably predict the intrinsic signature of the weapons grade plutonium separated from a pressurized heavy water reactor phwr, specifically an indian 220 mwe phwr. What would be the effect of reactor grade plutonium on the critical mass. Reactor grade plutonium data as in nea nuclear science committee, physics of plutonium recycling, plutonium recycling in pressurizedwater reactors, a report, vol. So, plutonium produced in power reactors reactorgrade plutonium, rgpu. Well, some people may not know, but today harbaugh supplied the definition of plutoniumgrade raw material. The nuclear industry has repeatedly claimed that this 1962 nuclear test used only fuel grade plutonium not reactor grade. During the investigations, two different fuel compositions have been chosen. Plutonium halflives, and weapon grade and reactor grade 20 isotopic concentrations, at given fuel discharges table 2. As an example, isotopic composition of uranium fuel initial enrichment 4. Fast reactors and nuclear nonproliferation problem.
Setting the record straight about plutonium production in. This was one of the most difficult books ive ever read on science history, but bernstein does a brilliant job of communicating the science involved to the lay reader. Characteristics of highly enriched uranium and plutonium and 12 their production processes i. This poses a certain risk of proliferation since such plutonium, having a small content of higher isotopes and plutonium 238, may be used in weapons actually with no prior processing. In fissile material, a free neutron may do any of several things. Exploding the myths, longtime defense analyst gregory s. An analysis of the current february 2009 status and future potential of indias nuclear fuel cycle is presented in this book. Composition of transuranium elements produced in canadian d2o moderated. Thoria 96% tho 2 as the main fuel and 4% reactor grade puo 2 as booster material for reactor criticality, avoiding any presence of weapon grade plutonium in the mixed fuel. For them, a reliable disposition method would have to change the isotopic composition of plutonium, converting it to socalled reactor grade plutonium, which has a high content of the pu240 isotope. Although plutonium 240 is a nuclear explosive material, its presence. In the united states, plutonium containing between 80 and 93 percent plutonium 239 is referred to as fuel grade plutonium, while plutonium with less than 80 percent plutonium 239 typical of plutonium in the spent fuel of lightwater and candu reactors at normal irradiation is referred to as reactor grade plutonium. Unlike weapon grade plutonium which is relatively pure plutonium 239, reactor grade.
Weapons grade nuclear material is any fissionable nuclear material that is pure enough to make a nuclear weapon or has properties that make it particularly suitable for nuclear weapons use. Plutonium is an essential element for producing nuclear bombs, which is why it was said that the discovery of plutonium was a work of the devil. Plutonium and uranium in grades normally used in nuclear weapons are the most common examples. Isotopic uranium and plutonium denaturing as an effective method. Weapons grade plutonium, for the very heart of the fat man atomic bomb used to obliterate nagasaki, japan, is first produced at the hanford nuclear reservation in southcentral washington state. Such small amounts and the fact that plutonium emits alpha radiation, which doesnt penetrate the skin, meant the risk of handling plutonium, compared to gammaemitting radionuclides, was. Nov 06, 20 cam newton, he said, thats plutoniumgrade raw material, you know. Isotope grade pu238 pu239 pu240 pu241a pu242 super grade. Plutonium as an energy source institute for energy and. A successful test was conducted in 1962, which used reactor gradeplutonium in the nuclear explosive in place of. Explosive properties of reactorgrade plutonium 1 table 1.
Any study therefore necessarily depends upon reverse calculations based on the information that is available. Astm c697 16 standard test methods for chemical, mass. Sensitivity of plutonium indifference value to enrichment price and mox fabrication costs 72 22. If all three reactors were producing weapon grade plutonium, and they would have likely all been capable of doing so by about 2000, then they would have been producing 280 kilograms of weapon grade plutonium per year, assuming a capacity factor of 85 percent. Approximate isotopic composition of various grades of plutonium. Further, this mistaken belief has made reactor grade plutonium. In order to be suitable for this purpose, the material must meet certain criteria for plutonium content, isotopic composition, and impurity content. Reactor grade plutonium rgpu 1 2 is the isotopic grade of plutonium that is found in spent nuclear fuel after the primary fuel, th. With original pu240 concentration near 20%, the 1 mg of plutonium used in this soviet ki1 smoke detector falls into the reactor grade classification rather than weapon grade. Exploding the myths should all be subject to international monitoring. Disposition of weapons grade plutonium in westinghouse reactors full record. This belief has long been held by a segment of the nuclear power industry determined to.
Weapons grade plutonium contains a higher percentage of the isotope plutonium 239 than reactor grade, while reactor grade plutonium has more plutonium 240 than weapons grade. By the mid1960s, when reactor grade plutonium first started to become available, u. Reactorgrade plutonium rgpu is the isotopic grade of plutonium that is found in spent nuclear fuel after the primary fuel, that of uranium235 that a nuclear power reactor uses, has burnt up. Plutonium238 was the first isotope to be made, which are produced from uranium238. May 15, 2014 this is known as reactorgrade plutonium. Weapon grade plutonium is defined as plutonium containing no more than 7 percent plutonium 240. Plutonium 239 is also one of the three main isotopes demonstrated usable as fuel in thermal spectrum nuclear reactors, along with uranium235 and uranium233. Weapons grade plutonium would obviously be the most desirable form of plutonium, but if terrorists only had access to reactor grade material, they would most likely try to use it. I read tom zoellners history of uranium earlier this month and this book about plutonium seemed like a natural followup. Jim harbaugh, cam newton and plutoniumgrade raw material. Table 1 isotopic composition of first discharge plutonium from bushehr 1. Nuclear policy, especially in europe, has often been justified by the belief110 that for making nuclear bombs, reactor grade plutonium produced by the normal operation of uraniumfuelled power reactors is necessarily much inferior to specially made weapons grade pu.
Computational nuclear forensics analysis of weaponsgrade. Plutonium disposed of in glass remains weaponsgrade about 93 percent pu239. Military fissile material production and stocks in france. Table 1 shows the composition and atomic density of the reactor materials. Reactor grade plutonium can, in fact, be used in nuclear weapons, according to a 1997 report published by the us energy department, which said at the bottom of page 39 that in short, reactor grade plutonium is usable, whether by unsophisticated proliferators or by advanced nuclear weapon states. Planet pluto plutonium was the second transuranium element of the actinide series to be discovered. A first generation nuclear explosive is very large, unsophisticated, and would use weapons grade plutonium a nominal explosion yield would be 20 kilotons with reactor grade plutonium, the yield would be more than 1 kiloton. Super weapons grade plutonium contains less than 3% pu240, weapons grade plutonium contains less than 7% pu240, and reactor grade plutonium contains 7% or more pu240.
On plutonium, nuclear war, and nuclear peace atomic insights. Russia did agree in 2000 that some plutonium can be disposed of through immobilization, which does not change the isotopic composition. This plutonium is clearly fuel grade, not reactor grade. In the united states, plutonium containing between 80 and 93 percent plutonium 239 is referred to as fuel grade plutonium, while plutonium with less than 80 percent plutonium 239 typical of plutonium in the spent fuel of lightwater and candu reactors at normal irradiation is referred to as reactorgrade plutonium. Why is weapon grade plutonium better than reactor grade plutonium in weapons. Percentages are of each nuclides total transmutation rate in a lwr, which is low for many nonfissile actinides. The plutonium files by eileen welsome garnered her a pulitzer prize for its writing. Price of weapons grade plutonium hits an alltime high. The plutonium produced by special purpose production reactors has a relatively low pu240 content 7% and is called weapons grade, while commercial reactors may produce plutonium with pu240 with.
Reactor grade plutonium is produced in the core of a reactor when uranium238 is irradiated with neutrons. The most important plutonium production facilities in the french nuclear weapons complex were the followon reactors g2 and g3, which came online in 1958 and 1959. The third factor is the isotopic composition of the residual plutonium in the final waste form. This form requires a specially designed and operated reactor. First, a swift primer about how fission bombs work.
In fact, breeder reactors, when operated with uranium blankets, can be used to upgrade reactorgrade plutonium into weaponsgrade. The plant was considered part of the weapons grade plutonium management and disposition agreement signed between the united states and russia, with the reactor being part of the final. The physical properties and the chemistry of plutonium were determined using only microgram micro 106 quantities. Plutonium 239 239 pu, pu239 is an isotope of plutonium.
This is a part of our countrys history that so many people know very little about yet it continues to impact us today. Mar 30, 2007 the history of plutonium requires the explaining of a lot of physics and chemistry. The key issue in jones work, as the title suggests, is the ability, with a bit of knowledge, to build a nuclear weapon with reactor grade plutonium. Now lets turn to how plutonium is extracted from the fuel irradiated in a reactor. Plutonium reactor article about plutonium reactor by the. Such a fuel cycle assessment is important, but relatively opaque because india regards various aspects of its nuclear fuel cycle as strategically sensitive.
Thus weapons grade plutonium is found in irradiated uranium in low concentrations. An ultra low viscosity epm for example, our wealth of experience in reactor grade, precolored pet assures the brewer that the polymer will deliver consistent appearance and light. The us disclosure confirms that reactor grade plutonium can be used for atom bombs and that britain was the source of the material used in a successful nuclear test in nevada in 1962. Jones book ought to be the last word on the matter. Jones draws from his decades of research using publicly available, unclassified information to debunk the persistent fallacy that reactor grade plutonium cannot be used to build reliable nuclear weapons. Reactorgrade plutonium and nuclear weapons part one. Grade uranium and plutonium composition of weapons. The smiling buddha blast and canadas candu snafu by ingmar lee in 1956 canada provided india with a 40 megawatt canadianindian reactor, u. Weapons plutonium in irradiated mox fuel contains a considerably smaller proportion of pu239, and a higher. Although this came about more by circumstance than design, it has allowed for a more consistent approach to chemical interpretation than might have occurred in two separate treatments. Plutonium also exists in trace quantities in naturally occurring uranium ores. Table 2 highlights the dramatic differences in molecular weight between a low viscosity reactor grade such as k2340a and some traditional polymeric plasticizers. Comparing the options management and disposition of. The classification convention distinguishes plutonium compositions on the basis of pu240 content because of this isotopes high spontaneousfission.
The main difference between weapons grade plutonium and reactor grade plutonium is the percentage of the different isotopes of plutonium. Can the usrussia plutonium disposition agreement be saved. In other words, increasing russias weapons plutonium disposition rate to 4mt a year would require utilising additional reactor capacity. Estimating indias nuclear weaponsproducing capacity. Fuel grade plutonium contains from 7 percent to less than 19 percent pu240, and power reactor grade contains from 19 percent and greater pu240. In the weapons tests conducted in 1948 it was shown that an assembly system of the same size could also handle u235 effectively. Criticality properties of reactor grade plutonium the original implosion assembly sys tem used in the trinity test in 1945 was capable of obtaining 20 kilotons from weap ons grade plutonium. On the first question, the good news is that iaea safeguards do not differentiate plutonium based on its isotopic composition. Reactorgrade and weaponsgrade plutonium in nuclear. The concept can also breed plutonium fuel through neutron capture in u 238. The fftf was a 400 mw, liquid sodiumcooled reactor located at the doe hanford site that operated from april 1982 to april 1992, primarily to explore reactor designs and operations that might be. Reactorgrade plutonium can be used to make powerful and.
Read, highlight, and take notes, across web, tablet, and phone. The doe definition of reactor grade plutonium changed in 1976. Further, this mistaken belief has made reactorgrade plutonium. This book provides the necessary technical justification and consid. The phwr produced weapons grade plutonium due to the lowburnup seen by the fuel in the computational model. The bn800 reactor is a sodiumcooled fast breeder reactor, built at the beloyarsk nuclear power station, in zarechny, sverdlovsk oblast, russia. The uranium238 from which most of the plutonium isotopes derive, by neutron capture, is frequently found alongside the u235 fuel in civilian reactors, in the form of low enriched uranium. Reactorgrade and weaponsgrade plutonium in nuclear explosives. Isotopic uranium and plutonium denaturing as an effective. Investigation of candu reactors as a thorium burner. The dimona nuclear reactor is used to produce plutonium used in atomic bombs. It is also essential that the future arms control treaties like the fmct subject all plu tonium regardless of its isotopic composition to treaty provisions. Economic comparison of reload costs, using free plutonium discount rate 0 % 76 23. Isotope vector for weapon grade and reactor grade plutonium.
Today, the uk government refuses to quantify plutonium production from civil reactors for these early years. Plutonium disposed of in glass remains weapons grade about 93 percent pu239. As it happens, north koreas first bombs were made not from uranium but weapons grade plutonium and, sure enough, iran built a plutonium reactor at a place called arak. So, plutonium produced in power reactors reactor grade plutonium, rgpu contains the larger amounts of heavier plutonium isotopes. It is also essential that the future arms control treaties like the fmct subject all plutonium regardless of its isotopic composition to treaty provisions. Plutonium grades and nuclear weapons nuclearfree campaign. Specifically a successful test was conducted in 1962, which used reactor gradeplutonium in the nuclear explosive in place of weapon grade plutonium. Lengthy irradiation of uranium fuel can change significantly isotopic composition of uranium in particular, isotopes 232 u and 236 u do appear. The isotope 238 pu was produced in 1940 by seaborg, mcmillan, kennedy, and wahl by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60inch cyclotron at berkeley, california. Reactor grade plutonium is significantly more radioactive which complicates its use in nuclear weapons. Weapons made with reactor grade plutonium would require special cooling to keep them in storage and ready for use. Fat man fat man, one of the nuclear bombs that help end the world war ii, was a plutonium bomb. Disposition of weapons grade plutonium in westinghouse reactors title.
Regardless of the debate over the quality of the plutonium used in the 1962 test, and the more general debate over the suitability of reactor grade plutonium for weapons, it is worth noting again that civil power and research reactors can certainly be used to produce weapon grade or fuel grade plutonium simply by limiting the irradiation time. In contrast, weaponsgrade plutonium is almost pure pu239 more than 90 percent. Before this, three grades were recognised, the change in definition for reactor grade, from describing plutonium with greater than 7% pu240 content prior to 1976, to reactor grade. Analysis of soviet smoke detector plutonium special. Behavior of plutonium and its alloys page 336 describe the fascinating mysteries of plutonium metallurgy in a forum open to the research community with the hope of attracting those young men and women into plutonium research. The reactor was purchased from france as part of a secret agreement related to the suez war, in which the i. The reactor is designed to generate 880 mw of electrical power. Nevada national security site then known as the nevada proving grounds using nonweapons grade plutonium produced in a magnox reactor. The main limitation will likely continue to be money for the reactors and reprocessing plants. The department of energy is providing additional information related toa 1962 underground nuclear test at the nevada test site that usedreactor grade plutonium in the nuclear explosive. Us made atomic bomb with fuel from british reactors the. Reactorgrade plutoniumrgpu is the isotopic grade of plutonium that is found in spent nuclear. Plutonium manufacture and fabrication nuclear weapon.
Interesting facts about plutonium a knowledge archive. Disposition of weaponsgrade plutonium in westinghouse. Avoided plutonium storage costs for 33 000 mwdt lwr fuel 70 21. Weapons grade plutonium is much more expensive to make and has much higher external environmental costs than other grades of plutonium, since the uranium 238 u from which it is made must be irradiated only a short time to prevent the formation of 240 pu. Plutonium 239 is the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons, although uranium235 has also been used. Reactor grade plutonium data as in nea nuclear science committee, physics of.