Reuters: Reactor Fuel Risks Rising

Uh Oh.
I, and a lot of other folks, have been assuming that the High Assay Low Enrichment Uranium (HALEU) needed for fueling the “Next Generation” nuclear would need quite a bit of additional refinement to become weapons capable.
Turns out, not so.
Now, we’re about to make a whole, big, lot of it and ship it all over the world on a daily basis.

Reuters:

 A special uranium fuel planned for next-generation U.S. nuclear reactors poses security risks because it could be used without further enrichment as fissile material in nuclear weapons, scientists said in an article published on Thursday.

The fuel, called high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, is enriched to levels of up to 20%, compared with about 5% for the fuel that powers most existing reactors. Until recently it was made in commercial amounts only in Russia, but the United States wants to produce it to fuel a new wave of reactors.

President Joe Biden‘s administration believes nuclear power that is virtually emissions-free is essential in the fight against climate change. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provided $700 million for a HALEU availability program including purchasing the fuel to create a supply chain for planned high-tech reactors.

Uranium is a radioactive element that exists naturally. To make nuclear fuel, raw uranium undergoes processes that result in a material with an increased concentration of the isotope uranium-235.

“This material is directly usable for making nuclear weapons without any further enrichment or reprocessing,” said Scott Kemp, one of five authors of the peer-reviewed article in the journal Science
, opens new tab. “In other words, the new reactors pose an unprecedented nuclear-security risk,” said Kemp, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former science adviser on arms control at the State Department.

A bomb similar in power to the one the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 could be made from 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) or less of 19.75% enriched HALEU, the article said. “Designing such a weapon would not be without its challenges, but there do not appear to be any convincing reasons why it could not be done,” it said.

The authors said if enrichment is limited to 10% to 12%, the supply chain would be far safer with only modest costs.The authors said HALEU is a domestic risk as it is not required to have the protections normally required for weapons-usable material. U.S. use of the fuel could also set a precedent for other countries building the reactors where proliferation standards are not as strict.

“Were HALEU to become a standard reactor fuel without appropriate restrictions determined by an interagency security review, other countries would be able to obtain, produce, and process weapons-usable HALEU with impunity, eliminating the sharp distinction between peaceful and nonpeaceful nuclear programs,” said the article, also written by Edwin Lyman at the Union of Concerned Scientists nonprofit group.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that more than 40 metric tonnes of HALEU could be needed before the end of the decade, with additional amounts required each year, to deploy advanced reactors to support the Biden administration’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035.

The DOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TerraPower, a company backed by Bill Gates that has received funding from the Energy Department, hopes to build its Natrium nuclear plant in Wyoming by 2030 to run on HALEU. TerraPower in late 2022 delayed Natrium’s launch date by at least two years to 2030 due to a lack of HALEU.

A TerraPower spokesperson said Natrium will use HALEU as it allows more efficient energy production and reduces nuclear waste volumes. “TerraPower has made reduction of weapons risks a foundational principle” the spokesperson said, adding that its fuel cycle eliminates the risk of proliferation.

Scott Kemp et al in Science:

Designing such a weapon would not be without its challenges, but there do not appear to be any convincing reasons why it could not be done. The amount of nuclear material would be large compared with traditional weapons but not prohibitively so. Our extreme example of 1000 kg constitutes a metal ball with a diameter of 46 cm (18 inches). The neutron reflector and assembly mechanism would be added to this, but even so, the final size and weight might be acceptable if the weapon were delivered using an airplane, a delivery van, or a boat sailed into a city harbor.
–
If the weapons usability of HALEU is borne out, then even a single reactor would pose serious security concerns. Yet, the DOE and US Department of Defense are providing funds for more than 10 reactor concepts with cores containing from several hundreds to many thousands of kilograms of HALEU, including the Natrium reactor being developed by TerraPower, a company founded by Bill Gates (9). The 20% statutory division between HALEU and HEU has been interpreted as the technical threshold between weapons-usable and -nonusable uranium by generations of nuclear professionals. There was therefore little concern when, in 2018, the US nuclear power industry’s lobbying organization, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), pushed the US government to make more than a hundred tons of HALEU available annually by late this decade (10). Congress responded in the 2020 Energy Act, directing the DOE to share HALEU with private companies. In October 2020, the DOE announced a 50% cost-sharing program, providing up to $4 billion in federal funds to two demonstration reactors that plan to use multiton quantities of HALEUfuel. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 then appropriated $700 million to develop civilian supplies of HALEU, and Congress has since made available $2.72 billion more to subsidize the private production of LEU, including HALEU (11).

Reuters:

Bill Gates’ advanced nuclear reactor company TerraPower LLC and the United Arab Emirates’ state owned nuclear company ENEC said on Monday they have agreed to study the potential development of advanced reactors in the UAE and abroad.

The memorandum of understanding comes amid a push by the UAE to expand its nuclear energy capacity, and a pledge by over 20 nations at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai to triple nuclear deployment this decade to fight climate change.

“For the UAE, we’re looking for a future for the clean electrons and molecules that will be brought to reality by advanced reactors,” said Mohamed Al Hammadi, CEO of ENEC, during the signing ceremony.

“Bringing advanced nuclear technologies to market is critical to meeting global decarbonization targets,” said TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque.

The UAE currently has one traditional nuclear power plant, near Abu Dhabi, which began producing electricity in 2020. TerraPower, meanwhile, has a demonstration project underway for its advanced Natrium reactor in the U.S. state of Wyoming that hopes to come online in 2030.