Israelis develop 'safe' plutonium: good for power, bad for weapons

Chemical separation

Stripping two different elements is orders of magnitude easier than separating two different isotopes (such as U-235 and U-238) as chemical techniques can usually be used to separate them.

SO I doubt the Americium on its own is the key to the story, and that there's probably something to do with the ratio of Pu isotopes as well (ie, not as much Pu-239 which is the one all the bad boys want).

Still, I can't beleve it would beyond the skill of your average mad dictator to take this stuff and turn it into something nasty.

Jolyon

Thats good news - however

A large amount of work has been done on the solvent extraction of americium, as it is the case that americium and the other transplutonium elements are responsible for the majority of the long lived radiotoxicity of spent nuclear fuel. It is thought that by removal of the americium and curium that the used fuel will only need to be isolated from man and his environment for a shorter time than that required for the isolation of untreated used fuel. One recent EU funded project on this topic was known by the codename "EUROPART". Within this project triazines and other compounds were studied as potential extraction agents

Eh?

It's fairly easy (at least by nuclear chemistry standards) to separate americium and plutonium...

Great idea - Bravo Israelis!

But (hee hee) Americium? Anyone else think it's funny that we Yanks are going to declaw weapons?

Good man

Now THAT is a fantastic idea.

Really - I have great admiration for people who look beyond the typical "I win, you lose" scenario of a conflict situation, and try to develop a win-win solution.

If this is real, and practical, and affordable, it could revolutionise the Arab States landscape - no more bickering about will they, won't they build weapons, simultaneously removing the political leverage currently exerted by the more dodgy regimes that by denying them (potential) nuclear weapons, you're denying them a way out of the third world.

Win/Lose - We beat the crap out of you (Iraq, Iran?) until you can't develop anything more technically advanced than a lightbulb: (and as Bully's special prize* we get your oil too):

Lose/Win - We give/sell you nuclear fuel to power your reactors, and hope like hell that you're not going to use it against us (or, we don't give it to you, and get a political mauling by the entire Arab world for being arrogant capitalist sons of Satan)

Win/Win - We give you your nuclear power, and get the security we want because there's no risk of it being used to develop weapons.

Genius.

Of course this all ignores the moral/ethical dilemma of whether or not the Western powers have the right to deny progress, in whatever form - to another nation. Discussion for another day.

If you haven't seen Bullseye you haven't lived.

Chemistry?

I was wondering: what's to stop the customers from chemically removing the americium additive?

Since americium and plutonium are different chemical elements, I would imagine it's possible to chemically separate them. Or are americium and plutonium sufficiently similar, chemically, to make this too difficult in practice?

Re: Eh?

Maybe.. but separating Americium and Israelium is impossible though! :-|

Paris, coz she is a living proof that removing bimboeon from babeide is not necessary at all.

Old hat

Well it's nice that the Israelis think they've cracked this, but maybe they should be concentrating on fusion, rather than fission reactors? Fission is soooo yesterday.

or...

You could just hit your plutonium with a suitable neutron source...Make your own Americium!

wait, that might be bad ......... (Risk assessment)

ummm

haven't the israelis officially disavowed to having nuclear weapons?

Developing Safer Weapons

Now all they need to do is develop a safer Israeli mortar that won't land on a Gaza school and kill the children inside.

Aren't they forgetting a MASSIVE problem?

Sure, Plutonium or uranium laced with americium may not be able to acheive critical mass and result in a nuclear or atomic explosion, but you can bet your sweet hiney that it is highly radioactive and poisonous, so would make an idea fuel for a crude Dirty Bomb.

They may have the tech to do that now, but need the fuel for their reactors, but selling them the stuff in any quantity means the can chuck as much of it back on the top of scuds as they feel fit!

RE: there is

"There is of course still a problem, alot of nations don't like the idea of being dependent on somebody elses technology for vital parts of the national infastructure (strange I know)....." Yes, us in the West aren't too keen on our economies being dependent on Middle Eastern, African, South American or Far Eastern oil despots and dictators. So what's the difference, we get our oil from them, why can't they buy nuke fuel from us? Try and formulate a reply without falling back on tired and stereotypical portrayal of the West as racist.

"...."Wait, you mean you're going to build and man these plants with your own people?"...." Take a look at Saudi Arabia, if you see anyone doing any manual labour in places like Riyadh then it is almost always a foreigner. I have seen a complete office bulding built, commissioned with furniture and electrics, computing systems installed, and all without a single Arab hand getting dirty. Of the staff, we had one Arab, a "sales manager" who was employed simply because his uncle worked for one of the ministries, nudge-nudge, wink-wink. Even the receptionists were Lebanese. One of the great challenges facing many Gulf countries is not just the low levels of literacy and skills, but that many Arabs just can't seem to be bothered to do the jobs a guy from Sri Lanka or Ethiopia will do for a fraction of the price. All their high-tech infrastructure such as telecoms are still heavily dependent on foreign skills, even though the majority of companies involved are Arab-owned. They simply find it easier to buy-in foreign skills rather than develop their own (sound familiar?). I can quite comfortably guarantee you that any nuke station in Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait will be run - if not by a foreign contracted company - then predominantly by foreigners.

Libya and places like Syria, which have a chequered career with the West but still use lots of Western tech, people and knowledge, may try and Arabise the projects for national control's sake, but they will still be heavily dependent on foreigners (case in point - despite Ghaddafi Arabising his military, when the Russians packed up and left his Air Force couldn't keep their jets serviceable or even fire their SCUD missiles). Russia, China, the US and European nations are all sending nuke sales teams to the Middle East to try and grab a bit of the action, and supplying "safe" fuel would not only make this an easier sell for Governments but also mean more money for the companies involved. Ironicly, it is the Israelis that have the most to gain from the idea of the Arabs buying "safe" fuel from the West, mainly because they already have their own nuke weapons.

Err...

...it's Neptunium-237.

=:~)

D'oh - Kaboom!!

A staunch defence of the rights of all nations, no matter how iffy, to proliferate, @AC at the top. Why? Cynicism for its own sake? The West's interests surely lie in bending over backwards to have this stuff adopted.

But wouldn't we be gutted if said iffy nations cheaply acquired a fat stockpile, then worked out how to restore its mojo. I know the good Professor said this couldn't happen, but would someone please double-check?

So let me get this straight.

You dosed the fuel with some of this stuff. Fuel goes into reactor and turns into stuff-which-is-reprocessable_but-not-usable-in-a-bomb.

There's nothing like cutting edge scientific journalism.

Masterful exposition.

'safe' Plutonium?

This must be some strange new usage of the word 'safe' that I haven't previously been made aware of.

Or is that 'safe' as in: Oh yes, it's perfectly safe. It's us that's in trouble.

Mine's the one on the peg with the towel.

Americium

Isn't that like Canadium but less boring?

The problem is the slow ones

Neutrons, that is. Thermal neutrons will be produced in large measure by these reactors, whether they're dosed with Am-241 or not, and that means that suitable clandestine addition of natural uranium around the core can be used to produce Pu-239. Which is what they want.

The key to making spent fuel impractical to reprocess for weapons use is to mandate long fuel cycles, which load up the fuel with undesirable Pu-240, which is both very hard to separate from Pu-239 and highly radioactive (worse than the usual stuff, anyway, which is pretty unpleasant by all accounts.) None of this stops a suitably conniving reactor operator from sticking extra stuff in the reactor to irradiate it with stray neutrons- the only way you could do that would be by absorbing them all, which would, uh, stop it working.

I guess you could probably design a reactor which didn't have any space to add anything, but then where would the coolant and control rods or drums go?

The other point I'd like to make is that now laser isotope separation is possible, it seems unlikely that anyone with enough money and sufficient insanity to actually want nuclear weapons is going to be stopped by any technological means. Pandora's box is well and truly open, and any half decent A-level physics student could design you a pretty reasonable bomb given access to the interwebs and a couple of months to do the calculations involved.

Re: Americium

"Isn't that like Canadium but less boring?"

No. When you stand close to Americium and Canadium they sound the same, but you'll notice that Canadium doesn't have a red neck.

Okay. Mines the one with the I-Spy book of stereotypes in the pocket.

Re: Safe plutonium

"Does safe plutonium generate heavy electricity?"

No. Safe plutonium generates electricity that can't give you a fatal shock.

Mines the one with the Faraday cage lining.

I wonder...

I understand the Chemistry and Nuclear Physics can do different things, and that it is (theoretically) quite possible to chemically separate Am from Pu or U, with enough Chem experiance. The question then becomes, what if the process of separation uses a substance that had nuclear properties. Like water, for instance, which greatly reduces the size of critical mass (and completely mucks up the whole stability thing) over time; so it may be possible to separate them, if it weren't for the fact that the process would ruin them.

I'm guessing that this guy with a slew of degrees after his name is more educated than a large number of the arm-chair physicists who are saying that he's wrong or over looked the obvious. He may have, he may not have. read his paper (and understand it) *then* criticize his work.

This is actually a good thing. A very good thing...

Look at it this way...

Outside of the big 5, there are a handful of smaller countries that may have nuclear weapons. Its in everyone's best interest to not have more countries trying to gain nuclear weapons.

If you think about it, this is the first step in a process that can ultimately allow for non-nuclear countries to get clean energy.

If you can agree upon some common standards of fuel types and reactor plants, you can actually have a good thing going....

If you consider a pebble reactor, you can offer a country cheaper power.

You build the plants for them. You supply the fuel. You remove the waste and recycle it.

The upside is that they get cheaper and cleaner power.

Developing countries need clean cheap energy.

With respect to a dirty bomb, The Big 5 control the fuel and most of it is secured. Biological weapons are more dangerous and scary than a dirty bomb.

Even if you consider just North America and the EU, if they adopt plants based on this technology, you will still have clean energy and a reduction in the waste issue.

Your big expense in the US is finding a plant site, getting it approved through the EPA, fighting all of the lawsuits by non-nuke activits, and then eventually construction of a plant. You want green electric cars and electric trains... You're going to need something like this to make nuke plants more viable.

What? No Altruists in the crowd?

Hrmmm, nobody expecting Israel to give this secret away to the world for free and provide peace and energy security for all? Everlasting happiness & all that?

...thought not.

Great Idea

I won't even begin to speculate on the feasibility or the technicalities, but general historical experience shows that if there is a way to do mischief it will be found.

Resulting in plenty of flames

warmongers, lead by example, etc.

Here's a news story about technology which could, by finessing the argument against rights to civilian nuclear power, pragmatically prevent nuclear weapons proliferation to the great benefit of all.

Pragmatic, i.e. there's a chance it might actually happen, unlike AC's continued daft suggestions.

@jolyon

Heh, you said Pu.