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How robust is HALEU from a nonproliferation perspective?
Shikha Prasad
High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) has emerged as a popular fuel choice for advanced small modular reactors due to its long power production periods before refueling. It is currently being pursued by TerraPower, X-energy, BWX Technologies, Kairos, Oklo, and other reactor companies. HALEU has a uranium-235 enrichment ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent, whereas traditional LWRs use low-enriched uranium fuel enriched up to 5 percent.
HALEU will provide power for longer durations, compared with traditional LWRs. But could it also provide an opportunity for more rapid proliferation, as is speculated in a 2023 National Academy of Sciences report on advanced nuclear reactors (nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26630/)?
If a nuclear proliferator conspires to divert fresh nuclear fuel for weapons production when it has not been used in a reactor, the effort required in separative work units (SWUs) to enrich U-235 from 5 percent to 90 percent and that required to enrich from 20 percent to 90 percent are both very small, compared with the effort required to enrich U-235 from its natural abundance to the initial 5 percent.
J. Galambos, C. Baker, Y-K. M. Peng, D. Cohn, M. Chaniotakis, L. Bromberg, S. O. Dean
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1759-1764
Magnetic Fusion Reactor and Systems Studies | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29975
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The TETRA systems code is used to examine devices with both normal copper and superconducting coils as vehicles for steady-state production of fusion power in a Pilot Plant. If the constraints of plasma ignition and net electrical power production are dropped, such devices are much smaller and less expensive than ITER-like devices. For wall loads near 0.5 MW/m2 with nominal ITER physics guidelines, devices with copper coils have major radii R near 2 m and direct costs near 1 × 109 $, while devices with superconducting coils have R = 4.1 m and costs of 2.4 × 109 $. However, the copper-coil devices have the burden of hundreds of megawatts of resistive power losses. All cases tend towards high aspect ratio (A > 4), high fields, and low current. The situation improves for the superconducting-coil cases if higher beta limits are permissible, whereas the copper-coil cases see less benefit from higher beta limits.