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Reactor-grade plutonium (RGPu) [1] [2] is the isotopic grade of plutonium that is found in spent nuclear fuel after the uranium-235 primary fuel that a nuclear power reactor uses has burnt up. The uranium-238 from which most of the plutonium isotopes derive by neutron capture is found along with the U-235 in the low enriched uranium fuel of ...
In any operating nuclear reactor containing 238 U, some plutonium-239 will accumulate in the nuclear fuel. [5] Unlike reactors used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, commercial nuclear power reactors typically operate at a high burnup that allows a significant amount of plutonium to build up in irradiated reactor fuel.
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership was a U.S. proposal in the George W. Bush administration to form an international partnership to see spent nuclear fuel reprocessed in a way that renders the plutonium in it usable for nuclear fuel but not for nuclear weapons.
Nuclear reprocessing can separate spent fuel into various combinations of reprocessed uranium, plutonium, minor actinides, fission products, remnants of zirconium or steel cladding, activation products, and the reagents or solidifiers introduced in the reprocessing itself. [9]
Plutonium recovered from LWR spent fuel, while not weapons grade, can be used to produce nuclear weapons at all levels of sophistication, [25] though in simple designs it may produce only a fizzle yield. [26] Weapons made with reactor-grade plutonium would require special cooling to keep them in storage and ready for use. [27]
Letters to the editor on the history of plutonium, Project 2025, ageism on the Benton Commission, Trump, syphilis, drug laws and Hanford. | Opinion
SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea has halted the nuclear reactor at its main atomic complex, probably to extract plutonium that could be used for weapons by reprocessing spent fuel rods, a South Korean ...
Spent nuclear fuel from normal light water reactors contains plutonium, but it is a mixture of plutonium-242, 240, 239 and 238. The mixture is not sufficiently enriched for efficient nuclear weapons, but can be used once as MOX fuel . [ 123 ]