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- Plutonium is not the most toxic substance known. It is less
chemotoxic than lead and less radiotoxic than yttrium-90.
- With on-site fuel processing there would be no need for used fuel
shipment, and only small and infrequent shipments of fissionable
materials for new reactors and fission products as impervious
insoluble ceramics.
- The current U.S. inventory of fissionable materials is nearly 900
tonnes in the form of used fuel, plus about 225 tonnes of
weapons-grade uranium and plutonium - enough to start 110-140 GWe of
IFR capacity, and there are no other ideas for its use. At
the 5% IFR breeding rate, the U.S. reactor fleet could reach 1,700
GWe capacity in 50-60 years without enriching any new uranium, or
sooner with enriching, eventually consuming the entire stock of
decommissioned weapons and used fuel - which nothing else can
do.
- Sir Nicholas Stern estimated that developed nations should invest 1%
of GDP to reduce CO2 emissions by 25-70%, and another 1%
to cope with climate change. Spending 2% of U.S. GDP during the
50-60 years required to deploy an all-IFR energy economy would cost
at least $20 trillion. Grid improvements for dispersed and variable
sources would add $4-5 trillion. Storage to mitigate variability
would have additional large but unknown cost.
- Deploying 1,700 GWe of IFR capacity would cost $2.1-3.7 trillion,
depending upon how quickly experience and economies of scale reduce
costs, and would reduce net CO2 emissions by well over
95% - one sixth of Stern's estimated cost to reduce CO2
emissions by 25-70%.
- Russia, France, China, and India are all developing fast-neutron
breeder reactors. American nuclear engineers and scientists are
retiring and dying faster than new ones are being educated and
trained. America will soon be a third-world country in energy
technology.
- It is clearly obvious that nuclear power in the form of safe
fast-neutron breeder reactors with on-site pyroelectric refining
must be a necessary (and economical) part of the American energy
economy. Should the United States develop the technology, or buy it
from France, Russia, China, and India?
- The sooner we start, the better off we will be!
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Van Snyder
2017-03-27