U.S. Plans Small Disposable Nuclear Power Plants

Environment News Service, September, 2004

LIVERMORE, California (ENS) — A small, sealed nuclear reactor that can meet the energy needs of developing countries with less risk that they will use the by-products to make weapons is being developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

A sealed reactor can be delivered to a site, left to generate power for up to 30 years, and retrieved when its fuel is spent, according to a report published in the "New Scientist."

The developers at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California claim that no one would be able to remove the fissile material from the reactor because its core would be inside a tamper-proof cask protected by a host of alarms.

Conventional reactors pose a threat of proliferation because they have to be periodically recharged...

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