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To: familyop

A 40 MW reactor is too tiny for any real electricity production and the use of D2O as a moderator allows the fuel to have a lower enrichment than is needed for a H2O moderated reactor (and in some cases no enrichment is needed). I’d be curious about the design of the reactor. If it is set up for rapid defueling/refueling (perhaps even while online) then it would be an excellent plutonium production reactor. When you produce plutonium you build up the levels of plutonium in your fuel assemblies to an equilibrium so you need to cycle out your fuel assemblies often to maximize the amount of plutonium that you can produce for a given amount of fuel and time. The fact that Iran is using D2O moderated reactors is very troubling.


8 posted on 11/25/2007 9:44:15 PM PST by burzum (None shall see me, though my battlecry may give me away -Minsc)
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To: burzum
"If it is set up for rapid defueling/refueling (perhaps even while online) then it would be an excellent plutonium production reactor."

If that's the case, what's your guess as to the worst case scenario? That is, when might Iran have a weapon at the earliest, given that they have other components ready (machine tech., electrical tech. and the like)? There have been some exchanges of engineers between Iran and North Korea over the past few years for various tests.

S. Korea, U.S. verifying reports on test of new N.K. missile in Iran: source
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834307/posts
(up to 4,000 kilometer range—May 16th, 2007)

...and Iranian engineers said to have been present for North Korean missile launches.


9 posted on 11/25/2007 10:03:30 PM PST by familyop (cbt. engr. (cbt.)--has-been)
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