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MIT professor develops method to verify compliance with Outer Space Treaty
Danagoulian
Areg Danagoulian of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is proposing a mechanism for verifying that Earth-orbiting satellites are in compliance with the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons in space. Danagoulian’s “concept and feasibility study,” titled “Verification of the Outer Space Treaty with cosmic protons,” was published recently in the journal Nature.
Timothy Ault, Steven Krahn (Vanderbilt Univ), Andrew Worrall (ORNL), Allen Croff (Vanderbilt Univ)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 210-216
The synergy of light and heavy water reactors using both uranium and thorium has been examined for the primary purpose of managing transuranic radionuclide (TRU) production. Two variants of a two-reactor system, where the first reactor uses uranium oxide fuel and the second reactor uses thorium-based fuels with a transuranic component, are analyzed from the perspective of TRU management. One variant uses low-enriched uranium made from natural uranium and uranium recovered from reprocessing in the first reactor, while the other variant uses highly enriched uranium. Full recycle of all actinides was used to minimize the amount of transuranics requiring repository disposal, so that the only source of exiting transuranics is from losses associated with process inefficiencies. Both variants compare favorably with other fuel cycle options with regards to the quantity of transuranic elements requiring geological disposal on an energy-normalized basis.