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Re:Concordia Students Set to Launch Most Powerful Rocket Dev... by p_l on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @08:17AM (#34609957)
Majority of reactors in civilian use (outside some research ones) are really, really incapable of properly breeding plutonium, partially because of fears by "nuclear haves" that "have nots" would be able to produce weapons even if under NPT they have inspections etc. to notice that.

In fact, civilian nuclear reactors are just as much likely to consume plutonium in MOX fuels. All warhead manufacturing countries have separate, optimized production chains for plutonium.

Re:Concordia Students Set to Launch Most Powerful Rocket Dev... by Schroedingersat on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @04:21PM (#34617973)
Hah.

What's the Pu240/Pu239 ratio in the most recently loaded set of fuel rods in any given moment?

Re:Concordia Students Set to Launch Most Powerful Rocket Dev... by p_l on Thursday February 02, 2023 @05:50AM (#34624875)
Unless the fuel rods were highly enriched, below usable for reprocessing.

It's literally why USA had been more or less legally trying to stop everyone from running highly-enriched fuels in reactor (or generally make itself a nuisance for projects that in turn require no enrichment at all, because that stops dependency on limited enrichment facilities).

Re:Concordia Students Set to Launch Most Powerful Rocket Dev... by Schroedingersat on Thursday February 02, 2023 @06:32AM (#34625168)
You're conflating two things and applying them to a third unrelated situation.

High enriched U is a proliferation risk because it's easier to enrich to weapons grade.

Fuel rods that have been through a full fuel cycle are 'useless' because of the Pu 240.

Fuel rods that have been in a reactor for 1-2 years (present in every 'civilian' reactor at all times) are neither of these things. And contain weapons grade Pu that can be used if you have Pu separation facilities.