今天发表在杂志上的一项分析 617888九五至尊娱乐 发现,, 与广泛持有的假设相反的, the high assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) now being 生产d with federal subsidies to fuel the next generation of small nuclear power reactors can be used directly to make nuclear weapons, and thus presents greater terrorism and nuclear proliferation threats than publicly acknowledged by the federal government and industry.
“Were HALEU to become a standard reactor fuel without appropriate restrictions determined by an interagency security review, 其他国家将能够获得, 生产, 不受惩罚地加工可用于武器的高浓缩铀, eliminating the sharp distinction between peaceful and nonpeaceful nuclear programs,” according to the analysis conducted by five of the world’s leading academic and independent proliferation experts. 这样的国家离拥有核弹只有几天的时间了, giving the international community no warning of forthcoming nuclear proliferation and virtually no opportunity to prevent it.”
The paper calls for additional measures to mitigate this risk as the United States and other countries pursue international deployment of HALEU-fueled reactors. 考虑到风险, we recommend that the US Congress direct the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration to commission a fresh review of HALEU proliferation and security risks by US weapons laboratory experts.”
目前商用反应堆的燃料不依赖高浓铀, 哪种铀-235的浓度在10%到20%之间, 而通常使用浓度低于5%的铀. 在这些层面上, 这种燃料不能维持爆炸性的连锁反应, which has prevented nations or terrorists from repurposing commercial reactor fuel for weapons.
然而, 由于技术原因, many of the nuclear reactor designs that engineers want to build today would use HALEU. Since HALEU is below the 20% enrichment lower bound that defines highly-enriched uranium (HEU), 哪些被认为可以直接用于核武器, development of these reactors has not raised significant proliferation concerns.
But by reviewing information in the open literature to analyze the quantities and enrichment levels of HALEU that the new reactors would use, the authors of the 617888九五至尊娱乐 paper concluded that HALEU above about 12% uranium-235 could be used to make practical weapons with yields comparable to the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many proposed reactors could contain enough HALEU to make a nuclear weapon and thus pose serious security risks, 根据文章.
这些风险正在增加，因为, although the quantity of HALEU in commercial use today is relatively small, the federal government is actively encouraging HALEU use and funding its production.
美国.S. 能源 Department is covering half of the cost of deployment of two demonstration nuclear plants that plan to use multi-ton quantities of HALEU fuel, 包括泰拉能源公司的“Natrium”快堆, 比尔·盖茨创立的公司, 计划在Kemmerer建厂, 怀俄明. 今年早些时候，联邦政府拨款2美元.70亿美元用于补贴浓缩铀的生产, 包括HALEU, to fuel these and other reactor projects that are being considered for a range of applications, 包括为数据中心和石油天然气业务供电. 其他国家也纷纷效仿.
Many HALEU-fueled reactors would use uranium enriched to just below the 20% limit, 哪种风险最高. The researchers suggest that “a reasonable balance of the risks and benefits would be struck if enrichments for power reactor fuels were restricted to less than 10 to 12% uranium-235,” which would allow many reactor designs to move forward with only modest economic consequences. 然而, 如果继续使用更高的浓缩, the authors recommend that the security standards for protecting HALEU from theft be strengthened to the levels that apply for the weapon-usable materials HEU and plutonium.