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‘Third Generation’ Nuclear Reactors have same old problems – wastes, weapons proliferation

Why James Hansen is wrong on nuclear power | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, By Renfrey Clarke April 8, 2010 “….. Third-generation reactors are in essence evolved versions of the pressurised-water installations that provide almost all of today’s nuclear energy. Now being built for the first time, “third-generation” plants are arguably still at the pre-commercial stage….

Like their forbears, third-generation reactors require energy-hungry enrichment of their uranium fuel, and induce fission in only about 1 per cent of it. As the world’s limited reserves of high-grade uranium ores are used up, these inefficiencies will make the greenhouse abatement advantages of third-generation plants increasingly unimpressive. Again like their precursors, third-generation reactors produce fiercely radioactive wastes that must be locked away from the environment for more than 100,000 years. Scores of thousands of tonnes of high-level waste are now in limited-term storage at reactor sites around the world.

Plutonium in the waste from third-generation reactors can be extracted and used to create nuclear weapons. A further danger is the possibility that ill-guarded waste could be stolen and used to make so-called dirty bombs, from which high explosives would disperse radioactive material.
When a technology is immature – as is the case with third-generation nuclear power generation – the time needed to make it fully operational is always an important question. And when the task is to replace fossil-fuelled energy generation, the timeframes for perfecting the new equipment and building it out are critically short….. Why James Hansen is wrong on nuclear power | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

April 9, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, technology | antinuclear, climate change, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear renaissance, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive, reactors, uranium