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Nuclear Theft: Risks and Safeguards
thorium, minimize the requirements for uranium enrichment
(reducing to zero the requirements for high uranium enrichment),
and minimize the susceptibility to theft of nuclear weapon
materials in transit for any fixed number of LWR or HTGR power
plants. Since all operations involving the processing and
fabrication of nuclear weapon materials would be carried out at a
relatively small number of rather large nuclear complexes, each one
could afford to establish highly effective means for safeguarding
the entire complex against theft of nuclear weapon materials.
Application
of the general concept we have just outlined could also be based on
the use of LMFBR's, rather than GCFR's if the LMFBR showed enough
other advantages (including its earlier development) to outweigh
its likely significantly smaller breeding ratio.
CONTROLLED THERMONUCLEAR POWER
(FUSION)
The
successful development of nuclear power plants that produce energy
by the fusion of light elements, rather than by fission of heavy
elements, will offer opportunities for large scale use of nuclear
power with much smaller attendant risks of destructive uses of
nuclear materials than fission power systems. It is unlikely,
however, that large numbers of commercial fusion power plants would
be built before the end of the century, even if the basic
feasibility of fusion reactors is successfully demonstrated within
the next decade. Almost fifteen years of intensive development work
was required between the first demonstration of a sustained fission
chain reaction and the startup of the first small prototype of a
commercial nuclear power plant in the United States. Another
fifteen years elapsed before nuclear power accounted for 2 percent
of the total electric power produced in the United States.
Nevertheless
it is possible that successful demonstration of the basic
principles of controlled fusion may have an an important impact on
the subsequent development of fission power systems in the U.S.
before the end of the century. It is also conceivable that some
types of fusion reactors that could play an important role in
fission nuclear fuel cycles may be developed before large scale,
commercial fusion power plants are built in large numbers. We shall
briefly explore some of these possibilities and their relevance to
the risks of nuclear theft, in the concluding section of this
chapter.
The
thermonuclear fuels that are likely to be used in the first
demonstration prototypes of fusion reactors will produce neutrons
as by-products. Some of these neutrons could be used for making
plutonium or uranium–233 in blankets of uranium or thorium
surrounding the reacting thermonuclear fuel. The reaction between
two heavy isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium (D-T), the
easiest reaction to achieve under controlled conditions, yields
especially high energy neutrons. The reaction between