Jim Green  All nuclear power concepts (including ‘fourth generation’ concepts) fail to address the single greatest problem with nuclear power − its repeatedly-demonstrated connection to the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Not just any old WMDs but nuclear weapons − the most destructive, indiscriminate and immoral of all weapons.

As with conventional reactors, IFRs can be used to produce weapon grade plutonium in the fuel (using a shorter-than-usual irradiation time) or by irradiating a uranium or depleted uranium ‘blanket’ or targets. Conventional PUREX reprocessing can be used to separate the plutonium. Another option is to separate reactor grade plutonium from IFR fuel and to use that in weapons instead of weapon grade plutonium.

IFR advocate Tom Blees notes that: “IFRs are certainly not the panacea that removes all threat of proliferation, and extracting plutonium from it would require the same sort of techniques as extracting it from spent fuel from light water reactors.”

Conventional reprocessing with the use of separated plutonium as fuel (in breeders or MOX reactors) has the same potential to drawn down fissile material stockpiles, but has increased rather than decreased proliferation risks. Very little plutonium has been used as reactor fuel in breeders or MOX reactors. But the separation of plutonium from spent fuel continues and stockpiles of separated ‘civil’ plutonium − which can be used directly in weapons − are increasing by about five tonnes annually and amount to over 270 tonnes, enough for 27,000 nuclear weapons.

Whatever benefits arise from the potential consumption of outside sources of fissile material must be weighed against the problem that IFRs could themselves be used to produce fissile material for weapons. WMD proliferators won’t use IFRs to draw down stockpiles of their own fissile material let alone anyone else’s − they are more likely to use them to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Other ‘fourth generation’ reactor types

IFRs and other plutonium-based nuclear power concepts fail the WMD proliferation test, i.e. they can too easily be used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Thorium reactors The use of thorium as a nuclear fuel doesn’t solve the WMD proliferation problem. Irradiation of thorium (indirectly) produces uranium-233, a fissile material which can be used in nuclear weapons.

Some proponents of nuclear fusion power falsely claim that it would pose no risk of contributing to weapons proliferation. In fact, there are several risks, the most important of which is the use of fusion reactors to irradiate uranium to produce plutonium or to irradiate thorium-232 to produce uranium-233.

Amory Lovins says: “In short, the notion that different or smaller reactors plus wholly new fuel cycles (and, usually, new competitive conditions and political systems) could overcome nuclear energy’s inherent problems is not just decades too late, but fundamentally a fantasy. Fantasies are all right, but people should pay for their own. Investors in and advocates of small-reactor innovations will be disappointed. But in due course, the aging advocates of the half-century-old reactor concepts that never made it to market will retire and die, their credulous young devotees will relearn painful lessons lately forgotten, and the whole nuclear business will complete its slow death of an incurable attack of market forces.” http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power-weapons/g4nw