“Activist group praises ORNL’s reactor report”
– in Frank Munger’s Atomic City Underground blog (Knoxville, Tennessee), February 26, 2016 – linked here
SRS Watch alert, February 25, 2016 – linked here
New Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) Document Important as it Outlines Status of Worldwide Research Reactors Using and Converting from Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU)
“NEEDS AND REQUIREMENTS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH REACTORS (ORNL PERSPECTIVES)” Helps in Understanding of Use of Bomb-Grade Uranium and Efforts to Curtail its Use – Document Linked here:
http://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub59842.pdf
Columbia, SC — The Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) has just released an important and useful document documenting worldwide use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in research and test reactors, according to the public interest organization Savannah River Site Watch.
The document, dated February 10, 2016 and released publicly this week, affirms the goal of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s admirable goal to convert reactors: “Under NNSA support, feasibility studies are under way to study the conversion of the US high performance research reactors (HPRRs) and the US-supplied high flux European research reactors still operating with HEU fuel. The main limitation in this endeavor is the lack of an appropriate, robust, licensed LEU fuel. The LEU fuel would also need to allow a safe, reliable, affordable conversion with no significant impact on the reactor’s performance or its ability to perform its scientific missions, and with no major changes to reactor infrastructure.”
“Documenting the reactors that use so-called “bomb-grade uranium” and outlining efforts to convert them away from weapon-usable uranium is an important contribution to nuclear non-proliferation,” according to Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch, an organization concerned about HEU and plutonium proliferation and DOE’s role in such programs (including at the Savannah River Site). “The NNSA program to convert reactors away from use of bomb-grade uranium merits positive assessment and the release of this document is a step in that direction,” said Clements.