Laser Enrichment of Nuclear Fuel Cuts Costs By Factor of Ten

[amborin]

Laser Advances in Nuclear Fuel Stir Terror Fear

. ....In a little-known effort, General Electric has successfully tested laser enrichment for two years and is seeking federal permission to build a $1 billion plant that would make reactor fuel by the ton.
That might be good news for the nuclear industry. But critics fear that if the work succeeds and the secret gets out, rogue states and terrorists could make bomb fuel in much smaller plants that are difficult to detect.

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But critics want a detailed risk assessment. Recently, they petitioned Washington for a formal evaluation of whether the laser initiative could backfire and speed the global spread of nuclear arms.
“We’re on the verge of a new route to the bomb,” said Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist who advised President Bill Clinton and now teaches at Princeton. “We should have learned enough by now to do an assessment before we let this kind of thing out.”

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General Electric, an atomic pioneer and one of the world’s largest companies, says its initial success began in July 2009 at a facility just north of Wilmington, N.C., that is jointly owned with Hitachi. It is impossible to independently verify that claim because the federal government has classified the laser technology as top secret. But G.E. officials say that the achievement is genuine and that they are accelerating plans for a larger complex at the Wilmington site.

“We are currently optimizing the design,” Christopher J. Monetta, president of Global Laser Enrichment, a subsidiary of G.E. and Hitachi, said in an interview.
The company foresees “substantial demand for nuclear fuel,” he added, while conceding that global jitters from the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan “do create some uncertainty.” G.E. made those reactors.

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For now, the big uncertainty centers on whether federal regulators will grant the planned complex a commercial license. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is weighing that issue and has promised G.E. to make a decision by next year.
The Obama administration has taken no public stance on plans for the Wilmington plant. But President Obama has a record of supporting nuclear power as well as aggressive efforts to curtail the bomb’s spread. The question is whether those goals now conflict.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/science/earth/21laser.html?ref=science&pagewanted=all

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Gees. Make it easier to unleash mass destruction. Not a good idea.

[itsrobert]

2. Better not blink

because China will probably beat them with a plant of their own. The Chinese steal everything not nailed down.

[bananas]

3. dangerous and unnecessary nt

[bananas]

4. Fuel costs are a small part of nuclear energy costs, this won't reduce nuclear costs significantly

This will have very little effect on nuclear energy costs,
while greatly increasing the risks of nuclear proliferation.