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by kalessin
886 days ago
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There is bridges between military and civilian nuclear, however keep in mind that nuclear reactors like the EPRs being built in the UK are designed such that producing the necessary fission products to produce weapons is basically impossible. To produce those isotopes you generally want a reactor that allows online refueling. OTOH, it is possible to "burn" nuclear weapons in civilian reactors, as done in the Megatons to Megawatts disarmament program. |
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The article make it very clear: Without civil nuclear power the maintenance cost of the nuclear powered sub fleet would skyrocket. The civil nuclear power generation masks the costs associated with maintaining the necessary know how and industrial base to fuel military nuclear reactors.
> however keep in mind that nuclear reactors like the EPRs being built in the UK are designed such that producing the necessary fission products to produce weapons is basically impossible.
Really. Last I checked these reactors were fueled with 5% enriched uranium oxide. Plutonium is formed by transmutation of U-238 which is in ample supply in that fuel. What's really stopping the UK to claim that Plutonium is the 2022 shuttering of their only reprocessing plant in Sellafield.
It's not like they need more Plutonium anyway. The UK currently sits on a 140t civilian stockpile of Plutonium in addition to whatever the military has. The pit of a nuclear bomb (fission or fusion) requires approximately 5kg Plutonium.