Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Technical Note
.
:
(cont.)
While these devices sound simple in principle, the reality
is quite different and the technology of the modern high-
throughput centrifuge is not simple to master. Those
used by Pakistan for their uranium weapons are primitive
by the standards of today. Making enough fuel for the
Iranian Bushehr reactor would need about
of
the Pakistan P
centrifuges (the design Iran started with),
requiring a very large plant. It only takes about
more
centrifuges running on the output of the fuel fabrication
plant to make enough
% enriched material for one uran-
ium weapon per year. An entirely secret plant running on
natural uranium would need about
of the P
to make
enough
% enriched material for one bomb per year. The
more advanced Iranian IR-
centrifuge announced in
is
said to have a throughput of about three times that of the P
,
so all the above numbers could be reduced threefold.
The most advanced centrifuges are those of the British
-
Dutch
-
German consortium URENCO whose T
units
are said to have a throughput
times that of the P
and
whose next-generation T
units are designed to have a
capacity of
times that of the P
.A
GWe reactor only
needs a plant with about
units to supply it with
the necessary enriched fuel and with the T
T
design would
need only about
units. To prevent illicit diversion or
over-enrichment, all the piping and connections among
the centrifuges need monitoring. It is much easier to reliably
monitor a plant with only a few thousand units than it is to
monitor one with a hundred thousand units. On the other
hand, it is much easier to hide a clandestine plant with
only a few centrifuges. The advanced technology machines
need very tight controls.
Plutonium:A
tonnes
per year of spent fuel. Roughly, this material consists of
about
GWe LWR produces about
%Pu,
%
fission fragments, and
% uranium.
