Laser enrichment of uranium?

[caraher]

Any thoughts as to the wisdom of moving forward with the proposed facility for laser-based enrichment of uranium? I'm really interested more in the proliferation side of the question against the backdrop of renewed interest in nuclear power. How much would the new technique really improve nuclear fuel production? Does not going ahead with the facility have any effect at all on other nations' willingness or ability to pursue this (or other) enrichment schemes?

Please don't hijack this thread to tell me why nuclear power is a bad idea in general; that's a much broader debate, and I'm trying to find the best arguments on this narrower question to focus a class discussion. I'm setting those questions aside for the sake of argument here, not arguing for or against nuclear power (apart from the obvious point that proliferation worries must be part of any complete discussion of the issue).

[Statistical]

1. Gas centrifuge enrichment is already very efficient.

Enrichment gets a bad name in terms of energy cost because most anti-nukkers use gas diffusion method (something that is nearly 40 years obsolete) in order to make nuclear look more "energy expensive".

However today the entire world uses gas centrifuges.

In a 40 year lifespan a 1000MW nuclear reactor will require enrichment which has an "energy cost" of:
124.14 PJ by gaseous diffusion
3.26 PJ by gas centrifuges

As you can see moving to modern gas centrifuges cuts down the enrichment energy requirement by 97%.

Since not many people think in terms of petajoules here is the equivalent in billions kWh
34.8 billion kWh by gaseous diffusion
0.9 billion kWh by gas centrifuges

To put that in perspective a 1000MW reactor will generate 322 billion kWh of energy (at 92% capacity factor).
So gas diffusion used 11% of gross reactor output. Centrifuges use only about 0.3% of lifetime output of a reactor.

----------------------------------------

Laser enrichment can cut that down by a factor of 2 to 10 (further 50% to 90% reduction) the amount is subject to debate. However personally I don't think it is worth it. The energy cost of enrichment is already low. If we were still using gas difussion I would say go for it. However the risk vs reward is not their IMHO.

One argument for laser enrichment would be to produce fuel assemblies in "nuclear safe" countries for use in countries like Iran, a closed fuel cycle agreement. Iran returns spent fuel and receives new reactor load at a pre-determined rate. The US having laser enrichment would essentially be able to sell retail new fuel cheaper than countries like Iran could produce it internally.

[NNadir]

2. Laser enrichment has been around for a long time. It's not new.

Asking the question as to whether it is more likely to make nuclear weapons possible is like asking if a different method of refining petroleum is likely to make napalm likely.

It makes enrichment cheaper potentially.

I personally believe we would be wise to move away from enrichment in its entirety, and in its place substitute an integrated thorium/uranium/plutonium cycle, in which all uranium and plutonium would be rendered completely unsuitable for nuclear weapons.

Note that natural uranium is totally suitable for the manufacture of weapons grade uranium, and the very first nuclear weapon used in the only nuclear war ever observed was in fact, made in precisely that way.

This method would have failed if the natural uranium had been mixed down with "once through" thorium uranium, since it would have had significant portions of U-232, U-233, U-234 and U-236.

[Statistical]

3. The article deals with transfer of technology.

Materials necessary to build enrichment centrifuges are well known and very specialized. Someone requesting couple million tons of aluminum tubing that has extremely high tensile strength is a warning sign. Nobody uses something like that for anything other than centrifuges.

So IEAE has programs in place to look for suspicious cargo and orders to prevent illegal (under NPT) spread of nuclear technology.

Laser enrichment has no such signature. The risk is that this will make it easier for covert technology transfers. It is atleast a risk worth exploring.

While Little Boy did use uranium calling it "natural uranium" is deceptive. It was natural uranium that had been enriched to 80% U-235 which is more than 100x its natural concentration.

Any uranium weapon will require enrichment and laser enrichment may allow non nuclear countries to acquire that technology for military purposes. It isn't that laser enrichment makes it easy to make a bomb, it is that laser enrichment may make it easier to get the equipment to make a bomb.

[NNadir]

4. To clarify, the starting material for Little Boy was natural uranium.

I didn't claim it wasn't processed. It was.

But until the element uranium, which has been here for billions of years, is removed from the planet in its entirety, it will always be possible to build a nuclear weapon wherever uranium and energy are found.

The energy used to build Little Boy was coal and hydroelectric, since there were no nuclear power plants at the time.

[Statistical]

5. Agreed.

Nuclear weapons can and will be made without nuclear power.

The question in the OP was does emergence of laser enrichment which can be more easily transferred covertly present a proliferation risk?

To make a weapon from uranium requires enrichment and enrichment requires enrichment technology.
While you can make the same bomb from either gas centrifuges or laser enrichment the laser might get through IEAE oversight.

Personally I don't think it is a big risk but it potentially is a risk.

[NNadir]

6. If you look at the signatories of this "concerned" group, one wonders if one should indulge

their bizarre fantasies.

They are not really interested in information; but rather in fostering an association they notably don't make between crude oil and napalm, or for that matter, jet fuel, that being nuclear = weapons.

I'm sick of them really, since they prefer to agonize of a form of theoretical war rather than be appalled by observed war.

We can reduce the probability of nuclear war to a very low level, and clearly it is already at a very low level, since 100% of the wars in the last 60 years have been fueled using dangerous fossil fuel weapons or fought over access to dangerous fossil fuels. If we want to lower it further, we will denature natural uranium and its products with U-232, U-234 and U-236 and of course, fission weapons grade plutonium and HEU.

But that's not the point that's been tried here. I don't trust or respect the agenda of the signatories, all of whom seem not to give a rat's ass about how many people die from dangerous fossil fuel war, accidents and waste every damn day.

The only nuclear war ever observed, more than 60 years ago, actually started - as far as the US was concerned - as a dangerous fossil fuel war being fought for access to dangerous fossil fuels.

Neither nuclear energy nor nuclear technology need to be risk free to be vastly superior to all other forms of energy or technology. They only need to be vastly superior, which they are.

[Statistical]

9. I feel stupid yet again for taking anything the antis say at face value.

See below a report from FAS.

SILEX takes longer and has lower maximum effective enrichment rate than current gas centrifuges.

As such it would be safer than gas centrifuges in peaceful nuclear power and it does so at higher efficiency (energy consumed per Separation Work Unit).

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs4/silex.pdf

[bananas]

11. That's not a report from FAS

It's a report from LANL which FAS keeps on their site as reference material.
It doesn't mean that FAS agrees with it.
ANd it is NOT a "a report from FAS" as you claim.

[NNadir]

31. It's not your fault. The remind me of creationists and they go out of their way to appear

reasonable when they are clearly anything but reasonable.

Their technical level is appalling, which is why answering their questions is worthless.

My slogan to describe them completely and totally is "ignorance kills." They won't rest until they've carbonized every bit of lung tissue on earth, until dangerous fossil fuel wars have killed tens of millions people more, until they've clear cut every forest on earth, rototilled every rain forest for their biofuel garbage for their cars, and made the atmosphere of earth as close to that of Venus as is possible.

During the whole time many of them will grin insipidly like any other cultists.

[NNadir]

32. Thanks, by the way, for the link. My personal preference is to eliminate actinide enrichment

in favor of thorium based fuels.

No wonder you're not an anti-nuke. You seem to know what you're talking about.

A combined Th-232/U-233/Pu-239/Pu-241 cycle makes this possible, and would eliminate the need for any mining for a very long time.

India has made huge strides in this area, and the papers of V. Jagannathan (he has quite a number of publications) out of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, are a pleasure to read in this connection.

His work is what I would consider the best on integrated synergistic fuel cycles, and show a path away from enrichment.

India has been driven in this area by its huge thorium resources, and ironically, its very short supply of uranium. They also have heavy water moderated reactors, which are among my favorite reactors in the world.

[bananas]

7. This is a serious problem.

What grade level class is this for?
Nuclear energy has a lot of problems, and proliferation is one of the major ones.
A side effect of this might be a lot more technology classified as dual-use, which can set back technological development in other areas.

How will it affect political calculations? In recent years, India and Pakistan threatened to nuke each other, and Bush and Israel considered nuking Iran. One thing which helped de-escalate those situatins was the time it takes to enrich fuel stocks into weapons-grade material. Laser enrichment could have made the use of nuclear weapons more likely. Professor Martin Hellman at Stanford estimates the failure of deterrence at about 1% per year, which is pretty bad, see his webpage www.nuclearrisk.org and a recent interview "Nuclear Chicken" at http://progressive.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/article.php?article_id=433

Also your students should be aware that even a "small" nuclear war between India and Pakistan would result in nuclear winter, see http://www.eoearth.org/article/Nuclear_winter and http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1208

[Statistical]

8. Well you made me go and look it up.

Federation of American Scientists (FAS) doesn't think so.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs4/silex.pdf

Their conclusion is that SILEX takes LONGER to enrich than gas centrifuges
They also conclude that the technology is to immature for High Level Enrichment.

Los Alamos labs concluded SILEX couldn't be used for US nuclear weapons production.


The only advantage SILEX has a lower cost of energy (making enrichment more efficient).

[bananas]

10. Where's the statement from FAS?

Your link is to a LANL document, FAS archives a lot of reference material which they don't necessarily agree with.

[Statistical]

12. I stand corrected however nothing indicates the information is false.

The national labs at Las Alamos labs dismisses the possibility of using SILEX for weapons grade material. The technique can't be provide "sufficient enrichment".

The method is also much slower taking 12 days for completing on one SWU (separation work unit) compared to 3 days via centrifuge.

So the technology is both limited in maximum enrichment capabilities and speed. Kinda unlikely it is a risk to proliferation. On the other hand it may reduced enrichment energy costs and make peaceful nuclear power have an even higher EROEI.

If anything we should be promoting the use of SILEX over gas centrifuges given the speed and higher potential enrichment with gas centrifuges.

[kristopher]

13. You shopped for one source that you could spin...

Did you check the references from the article?

"The attachments referred to in the letter are "Nuclear Power, Disarmament and Technological Restraint" by James Acton, Survival, Vol 51 No. 4, August-September 2009, pp.101-126, and "Laser Enrichment: Separation Anxiety," by Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 61, no. 2, March- April 2005, pp. 14-18, available to view online at http://www.cfr.org/publication/7876/laser_enrichment.html. or download at http://www.cfr.org/content/thinktank/Ferguson_BAS_separation.pdf
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Or this?
Nature 464, 32-33 (4 March 2010) | doi:10.1038/464032a; Published online 3 March 2010

Stop laser uranium enrichment

Francis Slakey1 & Linda R. Cohen2

Abstract

The US Congress should discourage efforts to advance the technology to make fuel for nuclear reactors, say Francis Slakey and Linda R. Cohen — the risks outweigh the benefits.

Summary

* The mean US household savings from laser enrichment of uranium would probably be less than $2 a month
* The technology could be misappropriated to secretly enrich uranium for weaponry
* The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission should assess proliferation risks in the licensing process
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

These articles do something you seem to be incapable of - they explore the range of possibilities and consequences of adopting a policy. You, on the other hand, start with your conclusion and search for anything you can spin to support that conclusion. You have no regard for the search for meaning or understanding.

[Statistical]

14. They ignore the elephant in the room.

Current GAS CENTRIFUGES can be used to make weapon grade HEU. They technology is proven and easily transferred (look at Iran, India, Pakistan, and North Korea).

The SILEX system is LESS EFFECTIVE in both speed and maximum enrichment potential than gas centrifuges.

Should the NRC investigate proliferation concerns? Of course as they should for any nuclear technology.
Should there be export controls on such technology? Of course as there are in connection with IEAE recommendation on centrifuge technology.

However nothing indicates the technology is more dangerous than EXISTING methods of enrichment. In fact if the Los Alamos report is accurate there may be limits on level of enrichment possible.

[kristopher]

15. Perfect example of what I said; you have zero interest in what is true, only what you can spin...

No they ignore nothing. You clearly didn't bother to read the papers.

[Statistical]

16. I did read the paper. Did you read the Los Alamos declassified report?

The fact that people WHO BUILD NUCLEAR BOMBS FOR A LIVING reached the conclusion the that technology is not useful for BUILDING NUCLEAR BOMBS.

Los Alamos had no agenda. The report read as a failure for SILEX in the context on furtherance of US weapons programs. These are people who build nuclear weapons. Who are looking for better and more efficient methods to make nuclear weapons. If anything they have a bias TOWARDS technologies that improve weapons development.

Despite that their conclusion was the opposite.

However from the article you cite:

Some analysts have regarded laser isotope separation as too difficult to master by nations lacking highly advanced technical infrastructures. One exception is Stanley Erickson, an analyst at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In an October 2001 paper Erickson warned, "As technology advances, this will not remain so." This observation proved prophetic in August 2002, when the dissident group National Council of Resistance of Iran announced at a Washington, D.C., press conference that Iran had started an LIS program and developed a laser enrichment facility at Lashkar Ab'ad.

------

So the cite is 2001 based on the belief it might be possible. Despite that in 2004 the US govt closed up laser enrichment research lab (after spending 2 decades and $2 billion dollars) because it was too complex and too expensive. The US govt the people who invested nuclear weapons. The next year Los Alamos lab releases a report on SILEX indicating the technology is not useful for US weapons program.

Despite that somehow a statement by one scientist in 2001 should hold more sway than 2 decades of research by the US govt ending in 2004 and the conclusions of the lab who makes nuclear weapons in 2005.

You want to claim selection bias?

[bananas]

18. The report by Lyman doesn't say what you think it says.

You wrote: "The fact that people WHO BUILD NUCLEAR BOMBS FOR A LIVING reached the conclusion the that technology is not useful for BUILDING NUCLEAR BOMBS."

1) "people WHO BUILD NUCLEAR BOMBS FOR A LIVING"
The Lyman report was written by a single author (Lyman), not everyone at LANL builds bombs for a living, before you make that claim you should verify that Lyman built bombs for a living.

2) "reached the conclusion the that technology is not useful for BUILDING NUCLEAR BOMBS."
No, the report did not reach that conclusion at all.

[kristopher]

19. He doesn't care what it actually says...

Here is the link to the other source in the OP article:

Nuclear Power, Disarmament and Technological Restraint
James M. Acton Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 4, August-September 2009
Resources

After years outside the political mainstream, the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons is once again receiving significant attention. There is a growing consensus that if key non-nuclear-weapons states are to be persuaded to strengthen the non-proliferation regime, nuclear-weapons states must start to live up to their commitment – enshrined in Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and reaffirmed when the treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995 – to work in good faith towards the elimination of such weapons. The clearest example yet of abolition’s newfound respectability came on 5 April 2009 when President Barack Obama laid out 'America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons' and outlined some practical steps towards that goal.

Almost in parallel with the resurrection of disarmament as a mainstream policy, nuclear power has undergone something of a rebirth. It is increasingly seen as part of the solution for global warming, and many states have recently announced new or revived nuclear-power programmes. Yet nuclear power carries with it the risk of proliferation. If the anticipated nuclear-power renaissance does indeed result in the further spread of nuclear weapons, disarmament will inevitably become more distant and difficult.

Full text availiable for download here: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=23586

[bananas]

21. "Some analysts" were wrong, Erickson was proven correct.

[Statistical]

22. How/when/where was he PROVEN correct?

To date every HEU single bomb in the world has been made from gas diffusion or gas centrifuges. Not a single one (even from technological advanced nations) from laser enrichment.

So how has he been PROVEN correct?

[bananas]

25. ...

In an October 2001 paper Erickson warned, "As technology advances, this will not remain so." This observation proved prophetic in August 2002, when the dissident group National Council of Resistance of Iran announced at a Washington, D.C., press conference that Iran had started an LIS program and developed a laser enrichment facility at Lashkar Ab'ad."

[Statistical]

26. That isn't proof of anything other than an attempt.

They TRIED. The US tried for 2 decades at a cost of $2 billion dollars before giving up.

Within a couple years Iran will build a bomb and it will be by gas centrifuges. The technology is not that complex. We figured it out in the 1950s.

[bananas]

17. The report doesn't say what you think it says.

In this report he says he wrote a classified report in 2005 for the IAEA in which he concluded that the single laser facility in Australia "is not currently capable of producing significant amounts HEU". Since that report is classified, it's hard to judge the validity of his conclusion.
He also doesn't address technology improvements or multiple lasers.
Since the laser technology is difficult to detect, a country could prepare many covert laser enrichment sites.

[bananas]

20. 12 days, 8 days, or 4 days?

He uses both 12 days and 8 days on page 4:

"Restrictive potential ..."
"12 eight-hour days"

"Utilities requirements ..."
"eight days mentioned in the previous paragraph"

"Potential seperative capacity ..."
"12 days"

So it could be 12 8-hour days, or 8 12-hour days, or 4 24-hour days (for example if they are ramping up for war).

[Statistical]

23. You are aware the length of time refers to a single SWU.

Seperation Work Unit.



To produce 10kg of Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) @ 4.5% from 100kg natural uranium 0.72% U-235 requires 61 SWU (Seperation Work Units).
To produce 10 kg of High Enriched Uranium (HEU) @ 80% from 2687kg natural uranium 0.72% U-235 requires 1,700,000 SWU (Seperation Work Units).

So a system even slightly slower at produce SWU would require vastly increased time to enrich to HEU.
If you did the slightest research on a topic you wouldn't look so foolish. That would be a long "ramp up for war" even at 24 hours days.

The best Gas centrifuges for example can complete a SWU in about an hour in a half.

Given Gas centrifuges already exist, are relatively inexpensive and results are well documented it seems silly at best to think Terrorist are jumping at the chance to use this unproven technology (that the US govt sunk $2B into and failed) and that Los Alamos concluded in not useful for building bombs.

If someone wants to enrich uranium to weapons grade levels they will use what is known to work. The amount of energy used (cost) isn't really material when your goal is to develop a nuclear weapon.

Then again amount of energy used is material when dealing with economics of nuclear energy.

[bananas]

24. In post #12, you said "3 days via centrifuge."

"The method is also much slower taking 12 days for completing on one SWU (separation work unit) compared to 3 days via centrifuge." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=234763&mesg_id=234853

Where you wrong then, or are you wrong now?

[Statistical]

28. Wrong now.

Sorry. Misused the calculator. calculated for tons vs kg. :)

http://www.wise-uranium.org/nfcue.html

Anyways say I am a terrorist and I want to make a nuclear weapon.

I could

a) use proven gas centrifuge. 1960s era technology that has been time proven. Thousands of nuclear weapons around the world have been made with it. The proof is in the confirmed detonations over last 60 years by 9 nations.

b) use laser enrichment. A state of the art technology that has never been proven. To date not a single weapon has been developed by SILEX. The most nuclear advanced nation in the world (US) spent two decades and $2 billion and failed to perfect it. Despite being more complex, most expensive, and more time consuming there is no guarantee I will ever be able to make a bomb.

I think i know which route I would choose but then again maybe I am crazy.

[caraher]

29. This is a college class

for non-science majors.

[bananas]

27. Christian Science Monitor article from 2008

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2008/0827/will-lasers-brighten-nuclears-future/%28page%29/3

Will lasers brighten nuclear's future?
New process could replace centrifuges but renew threat of nuclear proliferation.
By Mark Clayton Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor / August 27, 2008

<snip>

Eerkens, who has pursued similar laser-enrichment technology, is concerned about SILEX or other laser technology as a proliferation threat.

It would, he says, obviously be “easier to hide 20 or 30 lasers than 10,000 centrifuges.” One thing he is certain about: In coming months, every scrap of information about SILEX will get plenty of scrutiny from outside US borders. If GE-Hitachi moves ahead with a commercial-scale SILEX plant as the company says it wants to do next year, it will be a sure sign the test was a success.

“The Russians, the French, the enrichment companies – they’re all watching to see if SILEX is working,” Eerkens says.

[caraher]

30. Thanks for the debate

I actually ran across recent the Nature article and thought that might be a good topic to toss out to my class... I now have a bunch of good leads for more info as well as some analysis...

I think it's clear that gas centrifuges are the way to go if you don't mind people knowing you have them. The laser-based method seems to open the possibility of doing enrichment "under the radar" but with a lot of big question marks concerning usefulness to a bomb-making program.