Russia shuts down last weapons-grade plutonium reactor

[Statistical]

(Reuters) - Russia shut its last weapons- grade plutonium reactor on Thursday, local news agencies reported, under a deal with the United States to cut the risk of nuclear proliferation from Soviet era bomb-making plants.

The reactor, known as ADE-2, started up in 1964 while Nikita Khrushchev was in power at a secret plant near the Siberian city of Zheleznogorsk in the Krasnoyarsk region. After the end of the Cold War, Russia had no need to produce more weapons-grade plutonium as it had large stocks from thousands of decommissioned nuclear weapons. The exact size of its plutonium reserves is a state secret.

Russia and the United States, concerned at the danger of weapons-grade materials being sold on the black market, agreed in March 2003 to shut down Russia's remaining plutonium-producing reactors. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced on April 13, while attending the Washington nuclear summit, that the ADE-2 reactor would be shut.

...

Although plutonium production has ended at the Mining and Chemical Combine, its dual-purpose reactor continues to generate heat and electricity for local people, RIA news agency reported.

Under the terms of a deal signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, both countries must dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium by burning it in nuclear reactors.

Glad to see it go. Both countries nuclear arsenals are still too large (although 3000 warheads is a lot better than 80,000 warheads). With both stockpiles likely shrinking over coming decades there is little sense in keeping an aging reactor that is optimized for production of plutonium still running.

Little know fact is that the HEU from Russian nuclear bombs have supplied about 10% of all electrical power consumed in US for the last decade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program

Russia has such a large surplus of weapons grade material that program will continue until 2013. The existing MtoM program deals with highly enriched uranium only however under new deal signed by Clinton the US and Russia we will also "burn up" 34 tons of Plutonium in reactors to prevent that material from making future bombs.

Plutonium can be converted into MOX fuel for use in reactors by diluting it to 5% (5% plutonium, 95% depleted uranium). 5% MOX fuel has similar thermal characteristics as "traditional" 3.5% low enriched uranium fuel. So 34 tons of weapons grade plutonium will make an additional 780 tons of reactor fuel (3.5% LEU equivalent).

On edit: This article is unclear but looks like the "Clinton deal" is for each country to dispose of 34 tons of weapons grade plutonium. So that is roughly 1500 tons of reactor fuel equivalent.

[NNadir]

1. It should be said that weapons grade plutonium has certain reactor physics advantages, if converted

into fuel, which it should be.

In the very worst case, it could be used to dilute once through MOX to standard reactor grade MOX of the type now being consumed in European reactors.

Doubly recycled plutonium is not currently in use around the world in reactors, probably because there isn't all that much of it yet, but eventually there will be.

In the meantime, the high isotopic purity weapons grade plutonium can, and should be mixed down with once through plutonium at the very least.

A better option would be to use the weapons grade plutonium as a thorium seed.

[Statistical]

2. Megatons to Megawatts.

I mean it is the archetypal "swords into plowshares".

Turning the mistakes of the Cold War into decades worth of clean, reliable, emission free energy.