It would still be using reprocessed fuel and as you say the US...

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moosey

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20/09/21

21:35

Post #: 56219534
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Originally posted by zog ↑

Moosey - I really don't see the point you are attempting to make. I have only ever (to my knowledge) said that separation was now banned in the USA - that does not mean that I have claimed that prior to the Carter ban in the late 1970's separation was not carried out in the USA - it clearly was. As I recall you have claimed that the US has clandestine facilities both at Morris, Illinois and GEH also have a pyroprocessing facility in Wilmington - this was not my claim (although there maybe a mothballed pyroprocessing system in Wilmington). There is a experimental pyroprocessing plant at INL which is still being used to separate the EBR-II spent fuel from 1994 (see HERE) - from what I read its been a bit of a fiasco.

The issue about enriching UNF at GLE is a different issue - the fact is that your "rabbit" to it being done at the Wilmington test loop (even though insiders refuted your claim) is clearly and obviously flawed since the Wilmington test loop would have been contaminated by RepU and insiders would have known of this use since for them to use the test loop it would have to be decontaminated and thus your "need to know" argument did not hold water. The point I was attempting to make was that the Oklo reactor is designed to use "spent" fuel and that the PLEF feedstock is NOT "spent" fuel - it's tailings and the product will be natural uranium (and hopefully HALEU and 5%-8% enriched uranium later when (and if) it's licensed by the NRC). I was also pointing out that the US (a least at INL) also has historic separated spent fuel stock piles from operations prior to 1994 - I am not claiming (apart from the INL EBR-II pyroprocessing experiment) they have any commercial separation facilities since 1994. I accept that separation is being done in countries such as Russia, China, France alhough as I understand it separation has now ceased in the UK from 2018 (see HERE).

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It would still be using reprocessed fuel and as you say the US isn't into that game now, maybe later, it would not be easy to get recycling started in the US again until it was a proven method without safety or proliferation being addressed?

GEH do have two seperation methods at Wilmington one is an older wet processing plant and the other is a dry processing plant, both are in mothballs ATM but the guys from the UK who wrote that, said the latter could easily be repurposed, I didn't originally write that, two engineers from the UK who were visiting the plant at Wilmington did, the purpose why they were there is that they were going over revised plans for PRISM and SMR's.

I do think that using UNF to fuel some reactors would be a good thing, although it can't be used in a lot of reactors at the moment, and besides Oklo there are many other SMR's coming that will require HALEU but can't use UNF, The Oklo plant can run of HALEU as well see here-:
https://www.powermag.com/exclusive-...aleu-could-be-groundbreaking-for-new-nuclear/

So why build a plant that that recycles UNF now? a fuel that can only be used in certain reactors, when a purpose built HALEU plant could be used in a lot of new and existing reactors, it said as much in the link above where they see HALEU production as growing exponentially.

The article I posted, was from what I saw in two parts, it was not really clear enough on that IMHO!

But Paducah is a a Shuttered Nuclear Facility, there is no getting away from that fact.

Last edited by moosey: 20/09/21

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