If a future Prime Minister Dutton was able to get the fuel for a HALEU power station, would you be absolutely confident that he might not want to also dabble in some nuclear weapons procurement as well?

A recent Science paper (7/6) highlights one of the potentially disastrous risks the Dutton nuclear plan raises.

Recently I raised on P&I the issue of what media ought to ask Peter Dutton about his nuclear policy. It was “Are you aware that SMRs and proposed micro sized reactors are so inefficient that they would need HALEU (high-assay low enriched uranium) fuel to power the new stations? As this would require that, unlike traditional nuclear power stations which require only 3% to 5% enrichment, are you aware these new stations would require enrichment of 19.75% which would probably mean that a single reactor might contain enough HALUE to make a nuclear weapon?”

The suggested question was prompted by the Science paper by R. Scott Kemp. Edwin S. Lyman, Mark D. Steinert, Richard L.Garwin and Frank N.von Hieppel. To some it seemed to be rather a long bow but the paper outlines why it is not.

Their paper says: “Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons has been a major thrust of international policy-making for more than 70 years. Now, an explosion of interest in a nuclear reactor fuel called high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) spurred by billions of dollars in US Government funding threatens to........

© Pearls and Irritations