Article

2010-03-15 China-Japan-Koreas

S. Korea Builds Experimental Nuclear Reprocessing Plant

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Posted by Steve White 2010-03-15 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 It's starting to suck to be NorK right now.

Posted by gorb 2010-03-15 00:24|| 2010-03-15 00:24|| Front Page Top

#2 So....over....North and South Korea, dog eating Mofos. I hope the whole peninsula.....has a blast, literally!

Posted by GirlThursday 2010-03-15 07:07|| 2010-03-15 07:07|| Front Page Top

#3 This article is confusing. I think the SKs plan on fast breeder reactors that use reprocessed plutonium for fuel (and makes a lot more plutonium in the process). I guess they plan to minimize plutonium production by not surrounding the reactor with U-238.

Posted by ed 2010-03-15 08:50|| 2010-03-15 08:50|| Front Page Top

#4 Another possiblity is to take care of the long-lived radio-isotopes that are the main source of the radioactivity of spent fuel: pure plutonium or uranium is very mildly radioactive, but the byproducts of their fission are highly so.

One of the suppressed facts of nuclear power is that the radioactivity of spent fuel is proportional, not to how long you burn it, but its power level. Its not like gasoline or fossil fuels whose waste is proportional to BOTH power level and length of time. One proposal for taking care of nuclear waste is to reprocess the fuel, concentrate the waste of 10 power plants into a few bundles, then burn those bundles, with a load of fresh fuel, in a regular reactor. You produce power, albeit initially a little inefficiently, and at the end of the fuel cycle, you end up with only the waste from 1: the 10 units from the other reactors were destroyed by the excess neutrons.

This is the suppressed secret of "nuclear incineration", and I think the SORKs may be looking at a double benefit of getting paid for incinerating other people's high level nuclear waste while producing power for their own needs.

Posted by Ptah 2010-03-15 09:25|| http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org 2010-03-15 09:25|| Front Page Top

#5 Japan has the skill, the fuel, and the industrial capability to start producing plutonium-based thermonuclear warheads in 6 weeks if they choose to. The South Koreans are about a year out from the same capability if they so choose.
Congratulations China on the unintended consequences of NOT leashing your lapdog, North Korea.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2010-03-15 18:01|| 2010-03-15 18:01|| Front Page Top

#6 Also, remember that the Japanese Space Program has been successfully delivering satellites to stable orbits for years : IRBMs are prebuilt, just need some aiming data.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2010-03-15 18:03|| 2010-03-15 18:03|| Front Page Top

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