I disagree; speculation is all part of my interest in comment on this (and other) forums. I do agree that any speculation needs to be in contexts and it's probably inadvisable to give much (if any) value to it when purchasing (or selling) shares. This is probably particularly true with Silex which as stated by the company is "ground breaking" technology and some degree of speculation about how "ground breaking" it is is a component which needs to be examined in the context of "how feasible" it is. In the case of Pu 240 removal from UNF Moosey has cited a position taken by Charles Forsberg which I find interesting; I also find interesting the argeument put by ryguy against this proposition. One thing I do agree with ryguy over is the SLX (and GLE) need to learn to walk before they can run. In this context the main staple for the immediate future IMO needs to be tails recovery and then enrichment of natural uranium (both from mines and also from tails).
Irrespective of what the US does on reprocessing many other countries are reprocessing UNF and (it looks like countries such as Japan and South Korea may join this group in the future (in the case of Japan possibly the near future). A good read on reprocessing is from the
World Nuclear Assoc shows that a lot of RepU (the uranium extracted from Used Nuclear Fuels) is obtainable from France and other sources. Ryguy is correct in saying tht this is radioactive and therefore a lot more difficult (and expensive) to handle and convert to UF6 which is the feedstock for enrichment. One issue which Moosey and I have highlighted is that LIS should be a lot more effective at enriching this RepU than centrifuge. The major problem with RepU is that it contains:
1. U232 whose daughter product Th208 emits high energy gamma rays (this is the major reason for the difficulty in handling)
2. U236 which is a poison whose accumulation is one of the major reasons the fuel in the LWR needs replacement
This RepU still contains about 1% U235. The trouble with centrifuge is that it concentrates the u232 (and U234) even more effectively than U235; this is NOT the case with LIS. Because U236 it so close to U235 by atomic weight centrifuge inevitably also concentrates this poison so the RepU needs to compensate by adding more U235 than would otherwise be required. With LIS this would not be the case (although due to overlap of the v3 excitation spectrum of U234/U236 with U235 it in inevitable that you would still get some in the enriched product). However the fact remains that with LIS enriched RepU the quality would be far better than that obtained through the use of centrifuge; it would also be less radioactive (it would reduce the amount of u232 in the product). Moosey and i have also speculated that LIS could be used to remove the U232, U234 & U236 poisons; this is more speculative but worth discussing and would appear to be possible down the line (it may however not be worth it). Moosey has talked about REMIX which is used in Russia for RepU; this process uses blending (rather than enrichment) with high assay LEU (~20%) to allow recycling of the RepU up to about 5 times; this could possibly be extended if LIS is used to enrich the RepU and/or remove the poisons.
I do however agree that we need to be careful about "rose tinted spectacles" and consider this to be "icing on the cake" once a supply of RepU (potentially from outside the US) is available.
(20min delay)