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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 3: Nuclear Nonproliferation

AGA 3.3: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 8. März 2018, 12:00–12:30, B 0.014

The Composition of the British Plutonium Stockpile — •Christopher Fichtlscherer — IANUS, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany — ISR, BOKU, Vienna, Austria

The UK has the largest stockpile of civil plutonium worldwide. Different options on how to manage this stockpile are discussed, among others the use as MOX fuel in either fast or thermal reactors. When re-using the plutonium as fuel, the isotopic composition of the plutonium has a major impact on reactor operation, it influences safety parameters such as the reactivity coefficients but also the possible burn-up and the dose rate emerging from the spent fuel elements - an important factor when assessing the disposition of fissile material using a radiation barrier. The information on the composition of the plutonium is, however, scarce. By using the operation times and characteristics of all AGR and Magnox reactors in the UK, we try to make a useful estimation of the composition of the British civil stockpile. Since the half-life of e.g. plutonium-241 is only 14 years, different points in time also lying in the future are considered.