“The damage to national security could outweigh any potential benefit from this highly speculative energy technology,” say former US State Department officials and nuclear regulators.
The US Department of Energy together with two national companies intend to use more than 600 kilograms fuel containing uranium enriched to 93% to conduct the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) at the Idaho State National Laboratory.
The purpose of the test, which is expected to last 6 months, is to improve the operation of the reactors to reduce the expulsion of pollution related to climate change. TerraPower, an advanced nuclear power company founded by US billionaire Bill Gates; Southern Utility Company; as well as the Department of Energy, plan to share the costs of the CEFR, collects Reuters.
However, the initiative has not been welcomed by a group of experts, made up of former US State Department officials and nuclear regulators, who warned that the idea of using uranium suitable for bombs in a nuclear power experiment could encourage other countries to carry out similar experiments and even enrich uranium to bomb level while they seek to develop new reactors.
“The damage to national security could outweigh any potential benefit from this highly speculative energy technology.“, the specialists pointed out in a letter to the Department of Energy, stressing that such tests could also help extremists seize uranium to create a nuclear weapon.
“It is shocking that the Department of Energy, without even notifying the public, undermines a decades-old bipartisan US policy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons“, said Alan Kuperman, a professor at the University of Texas, who urged the writing of the letter.
Experts insist that low-enriched uranium could be used in the experiment, instead of highly enriched, however, that option would mean a risk. delay in timeas well as an increase in cost. The Department of Energy, in turn, denies this possibility, since it needs the size of the reactor to be kept small.
In the event that he agreed to use uranium up to 20% puritythe reactor core would have to be about three times as tall, three times as wide and contain 40 times the volume of molten salt, the department explained, promising that once the test is complete, the reactor will be dismantled.
For his part, a TerraPower spokesman added that the CEMR would be carried out in a secure facility, which is already dedicated to working with uranium suitable for the production of bombs. Southern, for his part, declined to comment on the matter.
Source: RT
