Plutonium could be the main source of fuel supply for future nuclear power plants. However, it could be also the axe in the hands of the criminals. The inside and outside challenges to the global non-proliferation regime force the civilization to think about the plutonium denaturation, or the protected plutonium production mechanism.
This important problem was discussed in the report of Prof. Masako Saito from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, presented on the fifth international workshop for fast reactors with liquid metal coolant (Obninsk, Russia, October 10-11, 2007). Prof. Saito explains some details of his proposals to the AtomInfo.Ru website.
Please say a couple of words about your idea for denaturation of plutonium.
The main idea is to increase the part of the 238Pu either by transmutation of the minor actinides or by increasing of 235U enrichment in the uranium fuel.
Why 238Pu is important for the denaturing of plutonium? This is because of his huge decay heat. Also the spontaneous fission of 238Pu produces a lot of neutrons.
Why is it so important to denaturate plutonium?
It is because of the non-proliferation. A lot of countries want to use the nuclear technology in the near future. It means the global risk of nuclear proliferation will increase. So, the security problems will be much more important in this century, and you must solve it.
One more question please. Are your study just theoretical, or you have some practical work?
We did the sample irradiation experiment in the ATR research reactor in Idaho (USA). We finished this experiment this month. Now we are going to open the samples.
Do you mean you irradiated the samples with the minor actinides?
Right, we irradiated the samples with neptunium and uranium mixture. We did not use the americium yet. We tried different content of neptunium up to 10% and irradiated 20 samples in the ATR reactor.
Thank you for you answer. The our final question is why this idea - plutonium denaturation - is coming from Japan?
Japan is the non-nuclear-weapon country. We consider the peaceful use of the nuclear technology and promote the route of fast breeder reactors for sustainable growth in future. You know also that we had the bad experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So, in Japan we are specially needed in such kind of technology as the plutonium denaturation.
Thank you for interview for AtomInfo.Ru.
SOURCE: AtomInfo.Ru
DATE: October 16, 2007
