Alright, let me straighten something out with Moosey before I get onto the real topic.
Moosey, there's one thing you have to accept, and that is that your perspective is narrow and that you don't know enough. I don't know enough either. Nobody does.
But what I know is what's in your interests. And that is to see Silex successfully take off and make some money. That perspective can compromise a whole host of judgements. No shame there. It's human nature. I have no interest in this except that I am worried about the future of the United States (which doubles as a concern about the future of the world whether you want to accept that or not), Silex provides an opportunity to raise the level of debate in the United States (at least in elite circles), and you guys have more insight into what might be going on inside the company and where it might be headed.
But there's a lot you don't know because you've demonstrated that your only interest is in trying to figure out where Silex is headed from a economic standpoint–and not on the fundamentals–and it's difficult to convince anyone of anything if they think their interests depend on not believing it. Yours don't depend upon what you believe, they run against it; you just don't know it yet. You are grasping onto pieces of information and trying to piece together a puzzle, but you don't understand how to interpret a lot of the pieces and have indicated to me that you don't want to.
In short, you have no deep understanding of what your interests are because you haven't done the work. The worst part is I think that you believe you have.
Let me do it for you...
Charles Forsberg's work sits in the "what if this could work?" area, but you have assigned it a weight completely disproportionate to what he did. Forsberg is no fool, but his paper is just throwing out an idea about blasting reprocessed nuclear waste with a laser to allow for more plutonium recycling with a side benefit of reducing the heat load, and therefore the repository size, for high-level nuclear waste. It's really just a think piece with some very basic calculations. It's clearly not research about plutonium laser isotope separation. But if you knew something about laser isotope separation of plutonium and something about reprocessing, you wouldn't being going crazy with thoughts about Silex and the back end of the fuel cycle. I don't think a normal person should be expected to know something about plutonium laser isotope separation, but I would expect a normal person to at least know that they don't.
Silex's laser systems are complicated, but they're completely different than what would be required from lasers to separate plutonium isotopes. The separation concept is always entirely different. This would require almost a completely different company if the goal was plutonium separation. Again, not stuff a normal person would probably know. But, this is forum about Silex, right? And presumably you're interested in how Silex plans to make money?
And here's the thing: I bet if you emailed Charles Forsberg and asked him about laser isotope separation plutonium, he would tell you pretty much what I told you. It's not related to Silex and that he doesn't know enough about lasers to know what might be possible or if anything is possible at all. I'd email him for you myself, but that would require his permission to post his reply here and that's just weird. By the way, I don't know Forsberg personally, but I think he very likely knows who I am.
Forsberg just did a sort of think piece for a US national lab who probably had some money sitting around who thought it might be nice to have some very basic calculations about what it means if a you could suddenly remove plutonium-240 from reprocessed waste with a laser. If you are really interested in knowing something about the prospects for laser separation of plutonium, just email Forsberg yourself and say you read his paper, you have an interest in laser isotope separation given your interest in Silex, and your were wondering if he would take some of his time to tell you about what he knows. That's how it's done. After all, you have a pecuniary interest in this topic, right? I also predict that he would tell you reprocessing won't happen.
Regarding reprocessing, the most often made mistake with reprocessing is repeated on this forum. Namely, the problem is mischaracterized as a quantitative one. That the problem is one of finding a way of reducing the volume of high level waste to reduce the size of the geologic repository. This is inaccurate.
Starting with physics is instructive here. Reprocessing spent fuel is only a chemical process, which means it's only interacting with the electrons of atoms and separating various streams because the electrons of the atoms in those various streams have different tendencies to want to separate depending on what substance you put them into. But nuclear waste is a problem because of the radioactivity emitted by the nuclei of some atoms in spent nuclear fuel. Reprocessing doesn't touch that. So, if you chemically separate something (reprocess it), you just spread out the radioactivity into different streams; it's not reduced. And, it's true, the volume of high level waste decreases by some amount (probably 25-30%). But there's two things to keep in mind: one is radioactivity and the other is heat.
Radioactivity is a measure of the number of atomic disintegrations per unit time. In other words, how many atoms decay into something else. Just count 'em up and divide by the time; that's radioactivity. But, not all radioactivity is the same: some are alpha particles, beta particles, and other photons of various energies. And what you need to protect the public from is different depending upon the kind of radiation the waste emits.
The size of a needed repository, however, is determined by heat, which is just energy. It's the energy of each kind of radioactivity multiplied by the radioactivity. And when you reprocess spent fuel, even though the volume may decrease by 25-30%, the total heat which determines the required size of the repository is less than that. I don't know how much less, but less. So, you still need an underground repository. Plus, if you recycle plutonium in a reactor, you would have the high level waste from that to add at some point. So, there is some benefit on reducing the heat load and the size of the repository required, but only a little. It's a marginal benefit in reducing repository size from reprocessing.
It doesn't stop there. You create two other kinds of waste that each have different storage requirements, and the total radioactive waste produced from reprocessing goes way up (probably by about 20 times). Yes, reprocessing gives you more total nuclear waste in volume, just marginally less high-level waste (in heat load). So, even though you would not require an underground geologic repository for these other two kinds of wastes, you would require additional storage, which costs money, and because each new storage location would require another NRC license, would become a monumental political headache in getting the public to accept each additional site. I don't know how many it would be. Email Forsberg and ask him. He would know more about this disaster than I would.
But it keeps going. If you begin reprocessing spent fuel, but don't have enough reactors to burn plutonium, you have one type of proliferation problem, which is a gathering pile of separated bomb material that the rest of the world wonders what you're doing with. Just ask the Chinese how they feel about Japan's 47 metric tons of separated plutonium. This means Japan could take less than ten percent of that and build a nuclear arsenal that exceeds China's in a long weekend.
It gets worse. Before the Fukushima accident, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was engaged in developing safeguards for Japan's Rokkasho plant in the Amori prefecture, which was supposed to separate even more plutonium from their spent fuel than they have now. I believe this took about about 80% of the IAEA's safeguards development budget. But, they couldn't do it. There are fundamental limits to measuring the flow of plutonium in a reprocessing facility so that if some amount of plutonium was diverted, if might go undetected. And it could easily be enough needed to make a 20 kiloton nuclear bomb, the size dropped on Nagasaki. While Americans might be confident that no inside job could divert nuclear material from a US nuclear plant, it's happened before. Ask the Israelis how they obtained nuclear weapons.
In summary here, reprocessing doesn't improve the waste problem. It complicates it and makes it more expensive by spreading nuclear waste around–requiring public acceptance for more nuclear waste storage sites–without eliminating the requirement of a geologic repository of high-level waste. The United States may not be able to use Yucca mountain for reasons that go beyond its size, but settling on geologic repositories–even if it is more than one–is a way better than this mess. Even though the nuclear industry, the DOE, and some others with interests tied to these will chronically raise it again, it also gets shot down. Forsberg just threw in a "what if" with a laser and said what if the increased costs of the laser separation are compensated for by deceased costs of plutonium recycling in LWRs and a smaller repository. He never considered the mess that is reprocessing.
In any case, you can read about Forsberg's views here regarding reprocessing and geologic repository following his 2011 MIT study on the nuclear fuel cycle:
He essentially comes down where I am on the economics, but he doesn't get into all of the complications of waste management from reprocessing. He also thinks finding a geologic repository is simply politics, but I don't. There are issues of size and geology at play. But maybe he just didn't mention this because he believes other sites could be easily located. He would know whether this is true better than I.
By the way, I believe this claim is in the interest of everyone on this forum who wants Silex to be successful. Why would you not want the United States to deposit its nuclear waste in geologic repositories if reprocessing eventually led to less global dependence on the uranium fuel cycle? One Fukushima is bad enough; why hope for two? Again, email Forsberg. He probably won't say reprocessing is bullshit, but he'll probably give you enough euphemisms where you can see it ain't happening. On laser separation of plutonium, I wouldn't believe a single thing he said. He's never demonstrated competence on that subject; there also haven't been any articles about it since 1984.
But the fundamental issues of not easing the waste problem, being more expensive, and the nuclear terrorism issue from domestic diversion probably don't hold as much sway with the US Congress regarding reprocessing as another one. And this is where Forsberg probably doesn't have as much insight as I do because most nuclear engineers who focus on reprocessing don't engage in track 1.5 or track 2 dialogues with American allies about nuclear weapons.
The issue is that for better or worse, the world still looks to the United States as an example, and even though this country is ignorant of how its seen around the world for many of the things it's done and deserves much of the criticism for it, the fact is when the shit hits the fan people still come running to the United States for help. That means US opinion is respected, and when American diplomats sit down with foreign counterparts and tell them, "On reprocessing, we don't do it. You don't have to, either," they're more likely to listen. This is still true irrespective of the current occupant in the Oval Office, and nothing appears more effective with US Senators on the subject of reprocessing than when presented with the favorable reactions of US allies to this statement.
I say it again: Silex's interests are on the uranium end of the fuel cycle, and anyone who wants that company to be successful should not root for the United States to make a decision that moves reactor fuel supply towards plutonium. Silex's best hope right now is that it may get the opportunity to take advantage of another example of DOE mismanagement: the failure to dispose of depleted uranium tails.
If it proves itself there, and the enrichment market comes back, it's likely smooth sailing for Silex. But rooting for reprocessing is like rooting for Silex's competitors. But don't take my word for it. Ask Charles Forsberg.
SLX Price at posting:
48.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
