Of course Paducah will go ahead!
I would have thought that any clear thinking person could now see that is the case and that this is the GAME CHANGING technology, this is where this new type of fuel will be made IMHO, using laser technology to enrich Uranium was a big advancement in enrichment but it was not game changing to my way of thinking, this newer development certainly is and it has been on the books for some time, even back as far as 2007, not long after GE licensed the technology from Silex.
As I have been saying for a long time now, I believe the Paducah plant will be a dual purpose plant ( I have now changed that to possibly a Multi Purpose plant i.e. tails, plus Uranium and Plutonium from used nuclear fuel and possibly other useful actinides as well).
To my way of thinking I believe that GE/GLE are and have been for some time trying to pull the wool over our eyes, with their lame excuse about not not finishing phase two or not going ahead at this point with Wilmington because of market conditions!
OK I can accept the market conditions to a point about Wilmington and enriched Uranium, but that is NOT the reason why they are on a so called go slow at Wilmington, in fact it is a phurphy , because I will bet they are going hell for leather at Wilmington, to try and find the best method for using used nuclear fuel to make this new fuel for ABWR's/ RBWR's and in the end, if it does come off? this will only add to my theory about Wilmington not going ahead as a Uranium Enrichment plant and I very much doubt that they would build a used nuclear conversion plant for Uranium and Plutonium there, simply because there are far better places to build it, rather than stuff up another area that has never had this type of nuclear fuel either stored there of converted there before.
This new development also adds to my thinking that there may be no further need for an enrichment plant for Uranium, they will have all the nuclear fuel they need for a very long time with this new MOX reactor fuel consisting of both Uranium and Plutonium from the old used nuclear fuel.
The other day, I mentioned that it may be, that an Advanced Recycling Center like they had proposed for the PRISM reactor may no longer be needed? because it appears they may not need to separate out the Plutonium from the Uranium any longer with this new fuel concept, if they can remove the nuclear poisons for both Uranium and Plutonium from the used nuclear fuel then perhaps that is the answer?
This could also make it far simpler possibly? to make the fuel loads for the reactors, because now, they will only have to make only one type of fuel load (MOX), not two, where they would have had to manufacture fuel rods with the Uranium for LWR's and another lot of fuel rods with the Plutonium for the PRISM, this alone would mean huge savings to GEH/GLE.
Remember this, without LIS technology none of the above would have been possible.
The LIS technology is the enabler, without this technology, they could not use the used nuclear fuel in a ABWR/RBWR like this, this method would have to be a far simpler MOX fuel production method and it can not be done with Centrifuge technology.
I believe this is what the US DOE are looking at, as a replacement for the SRS MOX fuel plant and I also believe this is what the safety study being done right now by GE/GLE for the DOE is all about?
I don't know why some people would rather believe that simple Uranium enrichment is the answer? instead of using the existing used nuclear fuel as the next generation fuel supply for nuclear reactors?
Because it answers two problems and possibly three?
It provides a new type of fuel that can be infinitely recycled (their words not mine) something the US calls nuclear fuel security and it solves to a very large degree the problem of what to do with used nuclear fuel, it would lessen the burden on any depository like Yuccah Mountain by a very large degree.
AND as an aside, GE/GLE would get this fuel for nothing and in some cases possibly get paid to toll treat it?
I also believe that the concerns for proliferation of the used nuclear fuel would be far less with this method, simply because the Plutonium isn't separated away from the other material at any point!
Some of this other material is highly radioactive, which would make it very hard to handle without having the necessary tools required, meaning that any individual/s would not be able to handle it without causing sever harm to themselves.
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