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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.
T. Norimatsu, J. Kawanaka, M. Miyanaga, H. Azechi, K. Mima, H. Furukawa, Y. Kozaki, K. Tomabechi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 893-900
Technical Paper | Inertial Fusion Technology: Drivers and Advanced Designs | doi.org/10.13182/FST52-893
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recent progress on fast ignition (FI) and cooled Yb:YAG ceramic laser enable us to design an IFE power plant with a 1MJ-class, compact laser whose output energy is 1/4 of previous central ignition scheme. Basing on the FI scheme, we conceptually designed a laser fusion power plant driven with cooled-Yb:YAG, ceramic lasers. The cooled Yb-YAG ceramic was newly chosen as the laser material. We found that the heating laser for ignition could be constructed with the cooled Yb:YAG ceramics as well as the compression laser with acceptable electricity-laser conversion efficiencies including the electric power for the cooling system. A new reactor scheme for a liquid wall reactor that has no stagnation point of ablated gas was proposed.