Reply #61: Summary

[PamW]

1) Yes - if one uses a reactor like Dr. Till's IFR and the Argonne reprocessing technology.
2) Yes - getting more energy from the same fuel is better.
3) No - I didn't say that. I said 95% of the spent fuel is U-238
4) No - read Dr. Till's statement again.
5) Yes - to the extent that usable uranium and plutonium could generate energy and supplant fossil fuels.
6) Yes - proven, but can still be improved upon as the Argonne process is an improvement.
7) Yes - the weapons labs were able to make a nuclear weapon from spent fuel from a Generation 1 reactor
with burnup less than 25,000 Mw-days/metric tonne. We don't have any more Generation 1 reactors; we
have Generation 2 reactors that in the '70s were getting burnups of 45,000 Mw-days per metric tonne.
With improvements through the years; these Gen 2 reactors are now getting burnups in the range of
55,000 to 60,000 Mw-days per metric tonne. The higher the burnup - the more difficult to use as a
weapon fuel.

However, any future reactors don't need to be Gen 2. We could build reactors like Argonne's IFR.
As Dr. Till stated in his interview, and as confirmed / certified by Lawrence Livermore National Lab,
the designers of the USA's nuclear weapons; LLNL certified that it is IMPOSSIBLE to make nuclear
weapons with the material that Argonne's reprocessing methods generate.

On this last point, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore are the true authorities as to what can and
can not be done in the field of nuclear weapon design. Anyone outside those labs that says he / she knows
what truly can or can not be done is bluffing. True nuclear weapons design expertise in the USA resides
ONLY at those labs.

Additionally, the IFR recycling process as actually demonstrated by Argonne National Lab at the prototype
IFR reactor at the Argonne-West site in Idaho; the recycling is done on the reactor site. The process
does not require a large chemical processing facility. The Argonne process is compact enough so that each
reactor has its own reprocessing facility in the high radiation area of the plant. There's no opportunity
for personnel to have access to the area. Everything is done remotely in a high-radiation environment. Also
there's no shipping of either spent fuel or plutonium on the open roads. Natural or depleted uranium can be
used as a feedstock, bred into plutonium in the reactor, recycled in the reactor containment, burned, and
discharged as short-lived fission products.

PamW