School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2018 Aug 2;13(8):e0201757. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0201757. eCollection 2018.
The successful implementation of disarmament treaties of the last centuries has led to significant amounts of weapon-grade Plutonium which are currently stored in high security storage facilities. Disposing this Plutonium should be seen as 'good housekeeping' avoiding unnecessary costs and the hazards of storing this material indefinitely. In addition, the disarmament is only brought to a successful end when the Plutonium isn't available for the production of new weapons anymore. We propose a disruptive approach for Plutonium disposition and demonstrate the feasibility in a neutronic study. Burning of weapon-grade Plutonium in a molten salt fast reactor is significantly more efficient than in the studied other reactors, while efficient process design has the potential to reduce the security concerns significantly. The proposed system could turn about 1.25 tons of weapon-grade Plutonium into electric energy worth £ 0.5 to 1 billion/year, depending on the electricity price while avoiding the hassle and eliminating the risk of high security Plutonium storage. In conclusion, burning of the weapon-grade Plutonium resulting from disarmament could be an economically very attractive approach to reduce the nuclear threat.
上个世纪成功实施的裁军条约导致了大量武器级钚的储存，目前这些钚被储存在高安全级别的储存设施中。处理这些钚应该被视为“良好的管理”，避免不必要的成本和无限期储存这种材料的危险。此外，只有当钚不再可用于生产新武器时，裁军才能最终成功。我们提出了一种用于处置钚的颠覆性方法，并在一项中子学研究中证明了其可行性。在熔盐快堆中燃烧武器级钚比在研究中的其他反应堆中更有效率，而高效的工艺设计有可能显著降低安全问题。所提出的系统可以将大约 1.25 吨武器级钚转化为每年价值 0.5 到 10 亿英镑的电能，具体取决于电价，同时避免了繁琐的手续和消除了高安全性钚储存的风险。总之，通过燃烧裁军产生的武器级钚可能是一种非常有吸引力的经济方法，可以降低核威胁。
