On 4/5/2015 9:30 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 4:39 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
> Then the U233 can be siphoned off and used. A 2GW LFTR is expected to
produce
about 60Kg of excess U233 per year; enough for 7 to 8 nuclear weapons.
I question that figure. Even theoretically the best (or worst depending on how you look
at it) a LFTR could do is make 9% more U233 than it burns up, but much more
realistically it would be closer to 1%, you try to steal more than that and the reactor
grinds to a halt. And the critical mass of U233 is 15 kg so even if that number was
correct I don't see how you could make 7 or 8 bombs with just 60 Kg of U233 unless you
compressed the metal to more than normal density, and that would take mega sophistication.
I didn't do the calculation myself; it came from a friend who worked on nuclear weapons.
In general you can't assume that it takes one critical mass to make a bomb. Critical mass
is a nominal measure based on the smallest sphere that will go critical by itself. But in
bombs the fissionable material is surrounded by other materials to act as neutron
reflectors so the fissionable mass can be considerably smaller that the critical mass.
That's the technology that went into the design of nuclear artillery shells.
Brent
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