RE: [cdn-nucl-l] (no subject)

["Adam McLean" <adam.mclean@utoronto.ca>]

Hi Neil,

Well, in 2001 the retail sales breakdown of electricity end use in the US
looked like this (billion kWh):
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0805.html
Residential	1,201
Commercial	1,085
Industrial	994
Other		117
Total		3,397
Direct Use	205
Total		3,602
Our first assumptions are that demand would be similar throughout 2002, and
that light bulbs are used equally between all sectors - probably not
completely correct but the above data can be used to come up with better
figures.  The EIA also has data for residential electricity use by type at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/recs4a.html - lighting accounts for about
9.4% of total use.  If you assume the same for all sectors, that would mean
0.094*3,602 = 339 bkWh for lighting (113 bkWh for residential alone).  10%
of that (1-in-10 lightbulbs) would be 34 bkWh across all sectors.  

In 2001, US electricity generation from nuclear power totaled 534 bkWh or
14.8% of total electricity production (see
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epmt03p1.html).  To account for
34 bkWh, that would be 6.37% of all nuclear production in the US.  Finding a
list of nuclear unit capacities designating those which are fueled wholly or
partially by Soviet weapon fuel is probably not available but we could come
up with an estimate based on the total fuel inventory in US reactors to the
end of 2001.  See the EIA Uranium Industry Annual summary at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/uia/contents.html.  Figure H4 shows
that by 2001, there were ~55.7 million pounds of U3O8 equivalent at the end
of year in US civilian power reactors (see breakdown at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/uia/table32.html).  Assuming equal kW
production per pound of Uranium (difference in PWR/BWR designs, burnup, etc.
probably smooth out pretty well) and that the fissile content of the
conventional fuel is the same as blended weapons MOX fuel (???), 6.37% of
the total fuel inventory is about 3.54 million pounds of U3O8 equivalent.
If the HEU is blended down to ~3% average enrichment, 3% of that is 106,000
pounds or 48.1 metric tonnes of HEU.  From
http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/1997/szyma.htm entitled "The Effects of US
and Russian Government Surplus Inventories", we find:
"The USEC Privatization Act directed DOE to transfer to USEC without cost a
further 50 t of HEU, along with up to 7000 t of natural uranium. Although
held in various metal and oxide forms, USEC plans to complete the blending
down of this HEU by 2002."
Hey, so that's not bad, eh? :)  Looks at least very close to what John Rich
asserted.  It's late though so some of my calculations may have been
completely off - improvements welcome...

Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: cdn-nucl-l-admin@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA
[mailto:cdn-nucl-l-admin@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA] On Behalf Of Neil Craik
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 10:41 AM
To: cdn-nucl-l@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA
Subject: [cdn-nucl-l] (no subject)


Subject; Soviets light up the USA.
In the BNES Journal October 2002, the 40th. Annual Lecture by John Rich ,
Director of the World Nuclear Energy Association included the following
intriguing statement "Today, one of every ten American light bulbs is
illuminated by fuel from Soviet warheads. "

Having this December toured New York and also visited the Springfield,
Mass., Christmas lights show, indicates that there are a lot of light bulbs
in the US. Can anyone provide the calculations to support the one in ten
statement and does it include fluorescent tubes also ?

Neil Craik


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