Comments by "YSongCloud" (@YSongCloud) on "Kyle Hill" channel.

  1. The rods cannot be recharged as the metal undergoes radiation fatigue making it more brittle over time, this is why they are stored in water to reduce the heat and radioactivity of the short lived isotopes, then transferred to dry cask storage currently. Once they get vitrified (combined with silica and ceramic into an intert glass) they are as safe as they can be and the metal brittleness no longer matters. However, the spent fuel pellets IN the fuel rods COULD be recycled and made into mixed-oxide fuels and used in reactors that can use that kind of fuel, however the US currently has banned used fuel recycling due to President Jimmy Carter back in 1977 believing that it was not cost effective or safe to do so. Why we have not lifted the ban and started recycling the waste here like countries such as France, Japan, and others have done seems crazy to me. I believe that a fuel plant making mixed-oxide fuels is currently being built in South Carolina, however this plant is not to recycle spent fuels, but will make mixed-oxide fuels out of excess plutonium left over from weapons programs. As far as keeping bad actors from building power plants, the costs and regulations involved with building a plant as such that they present hurdles to most private companies who would look to build one. The DoE, NRC, and IAEC all have oversight into much of the regulatory dealings of a plant when both during construction as well as operation. Add in other agencies that might be involved like the DoL, EPA, Homeland Security, and others, and you have so much oversight and regulations that someone is bound to notice something not right going on. There are also the technological advances made over the years that decrease the likelihood of operator induced problems, such as those that caused Chernobyl and TMI. In addition, even IF a "bad actor" did manage to build or do something with nuclear fuel, there is not much that can be done with it. In order to be made into a weapon, normal nuclear fuel pellets would need to be highly enriched, something that is near impossible for the normal person to do without very specialized equipment especially on the scale needed for a weapon. In fact, unused fuel is so low in terms of radioactivity that you can stand next to it and not be in any danger. As for the possibility of using the spent fuel for a weapon, the largest concern would be that of a "dirty bomb" wherein a conventional explosive spreads the highly radioactive used fuel over a large area thereby causing a radiation emergency. in reality, this would be much harder to do than most people think, not only because of the regulations and oversight involved with tracking nuclear materials, but also due to the heat (both thermal and nuclear) of the used fuel. It would take someone highly specialized with the appropriate know-how in handling and transportation of the material in order to even attempt to smuggle it out of the site, let alone the radiation detectors and other hazards that come with it. in all, the obstacles to overcome in order to use nuclear material, used or unused, from a reactor are too many to be feasible since there are other, much less complicated ways to cause havoc.
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