Word: breeders
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...plutonium dilemma has troubled policymakers for years. Should the development of fast-breeder reactors be encouraged as a wise way of dealing with global energy shortages? Or must the manufacture of plutonium be sharply curtailed to minimize the chance of its being put to unpeaceful uses...
Administration made its anti-breeder declaration. Many of the experts felt they had been ignored-as they...
...Face. As expected, Jimmy Carter last week came down hard on the anti-plutonium side. Citing the "serious risk," he said he would seek to halt the development of plutonium as a fuel source. (It can be manufactured only under federal license.) A prototype breeder to be built on the Clinch River in Oak Ridge, Tenn., will be restricted to research employing other fuels, like thorium, which is not used in weapons. Carter will block the federal funds needed to complete a privately owned plant in Barnwell, S.C., designed to reprocess used uranium fuel into plutonium. He will also call...
Environmentalists and antinuke organizations applauded the moves, although some felt Carter should have killed the breeder program outright instead of merely changing its emphasis to breeders that do not use plutonium. Indeed, if the Administration's estimates of domestic uranium reserves-a minimum of 1.8 million tons and probably as much as 3.7 million-are accurate (some experts characterize them as speculative at best), development of the breeder reactor would be less urgent because there would be enough uranium available to fuel conventional nuclear plants until at least the end of the century...
...Carter's decision flew in the face of some high-level backing for breeders. The Government's own Energy Research and Development Administration had long advocated plutonium power, arguing that it would save the U.S. $50 billion in energy costs over 30 years. Even more curiously, in March Energy Chief James Schlesinger commissioned a panel of eleven energy and environment experts to study the breeder issue. The group's report, which endorsed further development of plutonium as a fuel source and concluded that the danger of weapons proliferation existed with all kinds of reactors-not only breeders...