Talk:MOX fuel

message: --Alex 13:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

message: It says:
:Pu-240 is a neutron poison...
I question if this is correct.  Pu-240 has a critical mass of 40kg according to the article on critical mass, lower than U-235.  Either it is very reluctant to fission with slow neutrons, or it is not a nuclear poison.  Does anyone know for sure? Man with two legs 17:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for clearing that up. Man with two legs 11:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Plutonium 240, 241

message: I moved my entries to nuclear reprocessing. Simesa (talk) 05:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Source of U.S. Ban on Reprocessing

message: There is no reason to include Thorium in an article about mixed OXIDE uranium fuel. We don't mention coal or petroleum in this article either. Please don't readd it. 74.237.158.41 (talk) 14:59, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Thorium

message: An editor recently changed all the instances of isotope names to the Nuclide2 template, which shows the atomic number and atomic mass number is preceding subscript and subscript before the element symbol.  This is standard notation in the specialist technical literature, but seems inappropriate for a popular encyclopedia article since it is unfamiliar to most readers.  I propose to revert to notation that uses either the element name or the element symbol followed by the atomic mass number, e.g. plutonium-239 or Pu-239.  Comments? NPguy (talk) 15:43, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This same discussion was also started at Talk:Thorium_fuel_cycle#Change_in_notation - let's keep the discussion there to avoid duplication.     — SkyLined (talk) 21:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change in notation 

message: This is an important article about a subject with important implications. Therefore, the lack of citations to enable verification of the article's statements is disappointing. Also, direct quotations or attributing statements to a particular person or organization require pinpoint citations to the source. If this is not corrected within 30 days, I will delete unsourced material.—Finell 02:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inadequate source citations 

message: "Reprocessing of commercial nuclear fuel to make MOX is done in the United Kingdom and France" says the article. Citation needed, says I.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf29.html might have been the source, but although it claims to have been updated in 2012, it appears not to have noticed that the closure of UK reprocessing at Sellafield was announced in 2011, as seen in Wikipedia article on Sellafield.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.247.139 (talk) 10:25, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The UK govt still expects to get back into MOX production in due course, even though the last plant hardly worked: "An indicative DECC timeline, should the government continue with the idea, sees procurement start in 2015, construction from 2019 and operation from 2025. MOX fuel use in civilian reactors could start as soon as 2029." The UK has 100+ tonnes of expensively produced civilian Pu, and now has the problem of getting rid of this now zero-valued material somehow. It currently considers MOX fuel is the least-worst way of doing this: "The cost of continuing to store plutonium at Dounreay until 2075 and Sellafield until 2120, in line with the previous policy, would be about GBP 8 billion ($12.5 billion), ... immobilising and disposing the plutonium would cost GBP 5-7 billion, depending on the technology. In contrast, building and operating a new MOX facility would cost GBP 5-6 billion." Just shows how badly mistaken the UK reprocessing policy was, pushed for decades by the UK nuclear establishment in the hope fast reactors were the future! Rwendland (talk) 16:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who is still actively reprocessing MOX? 

message: This reactor has Mox and is in meltdown. SaintAviator (talk) 02:02, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Fukushima reactor 3

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I removed the following statement from the introduction.  
"Although MOX fuel can be used in thermal reactors to provide energy, efficient fission of plutonium in MOX can only be achieved in fast reactors.[1]"
I have a few reasons, not in order of importance: 
1)  The statement is not cited correctly.  This article: referenced text on page 198, but the index at the end of the book ends at page 197.  After some searching, I found some relevant text on page 57, which I will discuss below.  
BTW, this book is the referenced source: "Burakov, B. E.; Ojovan, M. I.; Lee, W. E. (2010). Crystalline Materials for Actinide Immobilisation. London: Imperial College Press. p. 198."
2)  The book states that "Although MOX fuel can be used in thermal reactors to provide energy, efficient burning of plutonium in MOX can only be achieved in fast reactors" which is not quite the same statement made in the wikipedia article.  The text that follows (in the book) discusses how much of the initial plutonium is consumed, and how much is transmuted into non-fissile isotopes, and what the implications are.  The referenced statement in the book appears to be about destruction of fissile plutonium by all sources, not just fission.  Also, this context doesn't refer to the usual meanings of efficient fission that readers might expect, such as neutron economy or net energy production. 
3)  This detail is too subtle and easily misunderstood to include in the introduction, especially where it was located.  If inclusion in this article is warranted, it belongs in the section on fast reactors.  
Echawkes (talk) 22:21, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The statement you deleted is indeed an important one that belongs in the lede, although the wording is debatable.  It is important for the reader to understand that burning MOX in thermal reactors is less effective (perhaps a better word than "efficient") because thermal neutrons are more likely to be absorbed and create higher mass actinide nuclides rather than fissioning heavy nuclear to release energy.  Thus, MOX burning in thermal reactors is less effective both at releasing nuclear energy through fission and at reducing long-lived radioactive waste from various heavy actinides. NPguy (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the amount of actinide waste produced in fast vs thermal reactors is worthy of inclusion in the article.  However, the lede is supposed to be very brief, and I think this requires too much explanation to be included there.  Also, the section of the book cited is about how thermal reactors behave: it only mentions fast reactors briefly in passing and doesn't discuss how or why fast reactors would be better or more efficient.  A decent treatment of this issue should go in the section on fast and thermal reactors, should probably use a more relevant source or sources, and would compare efficiency of energy production, actinide (and possibly non-actinide) waste produced, and the effectiveness at denaturing the fresh fuel (to make use of the spent fuel in weapons material impractical).   Echawkes (talk) 22:45, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: In my view, the fact that burning MOX in thermal reactors is problematic deserves mention in the lede.  Since virtually all MOX use to date has been in thermal reactors, it's not a minor point.  The question is finding a good citation to document this point.  It shouldn't be too hard.  I remember it being a key concept in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership back in 2005-2008 -- it's why GNEP initially proposed to rely on fast reactors and a large part of why GNEP died when fast reactors were pushed off into the future. NPguy (talk) 04:06, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The book doesn't say that burning MOX in thermal reactors is problematic.  In fact, it really says the opposite: one of the purposes of MOX fuel is to denature weapons grade material, and the book goes on to explain why MOX burned in thermal reactors would be very difficult to reprocess into weapons material.  The fact that it isn't consumed at the maximum possible efficiency is not important enough to be in the lede.  Echawkes (talk) 06:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Efficient fission of plutonium 

message: Rosatom began industrial production of MOX fuel in September 2015 at its Mining and Chemical Combine in Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory. The design capacity of the launch complex is 400 fuel assemblies per year and was supposed to be achieved in 2019, however, in reality, industrial production began already in August 2018, when the first batch of fuel assemblies was sent to the Beloyarsk NPP [13]. At the MCC, nuclear fuel will be produced from recovered materials, including high-level plutonium. More than 20 enterprises of the Russian nuclear industry took part in the launch of this production.
https://ria.ru/20190827/1557945434.html
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX-%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%BE
http://www.rosatominternational.com/news/2016/11/29-11-1
--145.255.168.249 (talk) 21:08, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  MOX fuel plant in Russia