Ron, you might want to read up on this subject...
STRIKE...
http://www.cameco.com/media/news_releases/2014/?id=810
MINE CLOSING...THE LAKE EMPTIED IN TO THE MINE!...THEY HAVE TO FREEZE MINE 300-450 METERS DOWN!
TO MINE THE STUFF ,TUNNEL BORING...
http://www.cameco.com/media/news_releases/2013/?id=746
nuclearfaq.ca
Canadian Proposal
Canada has power reactors that are appropriate for the disposition of weapons-grade plutonium. The CANDU reactor, in fact, is the most efficient reactor type for this use since it achieves the highest disposition rate (through on-line fuel-shuffling), its control system can handle the kinetics of MOX fuel, and it requires little modification. See further discussion in Reference [8].
In the proposals under consideration, the weapons-grade metallic plutonium would have been converted to an oxide powder, mixed (diluted, at 2 to 3%) with depleted-uranium oxide reactor fuel, and manufactured into CANDU fuel bundles in the country of origin. The plutonium would only have been shipped across Canadian borders in this diluted and chemically-altered form, packaged within pre-engineered CANDU fuel. In this form it would already be more resistant to proliferation, but further denaturing in a power reactor would have further reduced the proliferation risk. The fuel not only then becomes highly radioactive in this process, but the isotopic mixture of plutonium itself is also reduced to something resembling reactor-grade purity.
There were further, political, attractions of the "CANDU MOX option". It provides third-party intervention in the disposition process: Both Russia and the U.S. could conceivably have seen Canada as a neutral location where their surplus plutonium will be treated. Russia also favoured the MOX approach over vitrification/immobilization [2], but possibly lacked the domestic ability to "burn" weapons-plutonium MOX fuel at appropriate rate. |
