{"id":26472,"date":"2017-10-05T06:21:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T11:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26472"},"modified":"2017-10-05T06:21:24","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T11:21:24","slug":"nuclear-fallacies-the-problems-with-james-hansens-promotion-of-generation-iv-reactors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26472","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Fallacies: the Problems With James Hansen\u2019s Promotion of Generation IV Reactors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nuclear Fallacies: the Problems With James Hansen\u2019s Promotion of Generation IV Reactors<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Photo by Lennart Tange | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dr James Hansen is rightly admired for his scientific and political work drawing attention to climate change. His advocacy of nuclear power\u00a0\u2012\u00a0and in particular novel Generation IV nuclear concepts\u00a0\u2012\u00a0deserves serious scrutiny.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, Dr Hansen (among others) claims that some Generation IV reactors are a triple threat: they can convert weapons-usable (fissile) material and long-lived nuclear waste into low-carbon electricity. Let\u2019s take the weapons and waste issues in turn.<\/p>\n

The risks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Hansen says Generation IV reactors can be made \u201cmore resistant to weapons proliferation than today\u2019s reactors\u201d and he claims that \u201cmodern nuclear technology can reduce proliferation risks\u201d.<\/p>\n

But are new reactors being made more resistant to weapons proliferation and are they reducing proliferation risks? In a word: No.<\/p>\n

Fast neutron reactors have been used for weapons production in the past (e.g. by France) and will likely be used for weapons production in future (e.g. by India).<\/p>\n

India plans to produce weapons-grade plutonium in fast breeder reactors for use as driver fuel in thorium reactors. Compared to conventional uranium reactors, India\u2019s plan is far worse on both proliferation and security grounds. To make matters worse, India refuses to place its fast breeder \/ thorium program under IAEA safeguards.<\/p>\n

Dr Hansen claims that thorium-based fuel cycles are \u201cinherently proliferation-resistant\u201d. But in fact, thorium has been used to produce fissile material (uranium-233) for nuclear weapons tests. Again, India\u2019s plans provide a striking real-world refutation of Hansen\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

Dr Hansen claims that integral fast reactors (IFR)\u00a0\u2012\u00a0a non-existent variant of fast neutron reactors\u00a0\u2012\u00a0\u201ccould be inherently free from the risk of proliferation\u201d. Unfortunately, that isn\u2019t true. Dr George Stanford, who worked on an IFR R&D program in the US, notes that proliferators \u201ccould do [with IFRs] what they could do with any other reactor \u2212 operate it on a special cycle to produce good quality weapons material.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nuclear Fallacies: the Problems With James Hansen\u2019s Promotion of Generation IV Reactors Photo by Lennart Tange | CC BY 2.0 Dr James Hansen is rightly admired for his scientific and political work drawing attention to climate change. His advocacy of nuclear power\u00a0\u2012\u00a0and in particular novel Generation IV nuclear concepts\u00a0\u2012\u00a0deserves serious scrutiny. In a nutshell, Dr […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5493,6955,13404,578],"class_list":["post-26472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-counterpunch","tag-james-hansen","tag-jim-green","tag-nuclear-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26473,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26472\/revisions\/26473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}