Timothy Murphy wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:



You can use Uranium to make Plutonium. In fact a fast breeder makes more
fuel than it uses..

I don't think that is so.
The works I consulted suggest that the addition of plutonium to uranium
in MOX plants reduces uranium needs by about 30%.
Against this, extraction of plutonium multiplies high-level waste
about 17 times.
For this reason, the technique is not considered economic at present.

Fast breeders are used principally for weapon production.


No, they aren't. You can't begin to play with fast breeders without
already having everything you need to make weapons-grade plutonium by a
much quicker and easier route.

As I said a few days ago, the quick and easy way is to irradiate uranium
in a very basic thermal reactor, and then put it through a reprocessing
plant. All the existing weapons states had this technology for more than
half a century, and quickly built up more than sufficient stockpiles of
weapons-grade plutonium.

In contrast, the fast breeder was conceived as a way to extract more
energy from 'used' plutonium and uranium that had already reached the
end of its working life in first-generation thermal reactors. It was a
clever concept, but it never had any prospect of being economic.



--
Ian White