Plutonium: How Nuclear Power's Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare (Hardcover, 2019)

· 제목 : Plutonium: How Nuclear Power's Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare (Hardcover, 2019) 
· 분류 : 외국도서 > 과학/수학/생태 > 과학 > 물리학 > 일반
· ISBN : 9789811399008
· 쪽수 : 177쪽
· 출판일 : 2019-12-24

OVERVIEW

1.     Overview

Dreams of plutonium breeder reactors

Downsides of breeders

                           Much more uranium found and demand growth much lower than projections

                           Reprocessing spent power-reactor fuel

                           A wake-up call from India’s nuclear test

                          Plutonium fuel for light-water reactors

                           Reprocessing for radioactive-waste management?

                           The nightmares

THE DREAM

2.     The dream: a future powered by plutonium

Dual-purpose reactors

How plutonium is made

­            Light-water reactors and uranium enrichment

Plutonium breeder reactors

 

THE NIGHTMARES

3.     Civilian plutonium separation and nuclear-weapon proliferation

Nuclear-weapon proliferation

The wake-up call of Smiling Buddha

The Carter administration’s review of the US breeder-reactor program

Electricity consumption growth slows and nuclear power stalls

Fading of the breeder dream

Legacies of the failed breeder-reactor dream

4.     Continuation of plutonium separation without breeder reactors

France: Recycling plutonium in light-water reactors

United Kingdom: A reprocessing program finally winding down

Japan: The only non-nuclear-armed country with a reprocessing program

Russia: Continuing breeder reactor development

Weapon-usability of reactor-grade plutonium

The persistence of civilian reprocessing

 

5.     A much worse accident that almost happened in Fukushima: A fire in a dense-packed spent fuel pool

Concerns about fires in spent-fuel pools

Land contamination by cesium-137

Regulatory considerations in the United States

Potential impacts from spent-fuel-pool fires in South Korea

 

A PATH FORWARD

6.     Early dry-cask storage: A safer alternative to dense-packed pools and reprocessing

Dry storage

Cost advantages

Safety advantages

Central storage

How long can dry storage endure?

Transport

Conclusions

 

7.     Deep disposal of spent fuel without reprocessing

Reprocessing and proliferation

The modest environmental hazard from plutonium in a spent-fuel repository

Can reprocessing significantly reduce the size of a radioactive-waste repository?

Hazards of reprocessing

                           Conclusions

 

8.     The case for a ban on reprocessing

A Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

Attempts to limit stocks of civilian plutonium

            Parallel efforts to limit HEU use

            A ban on plutonium separation

 

Bibliography

 

Index