Many scientists have come to the conclusion that nuclear energy is one of the alternative energy solutions for climate change. A new process, laser enrichment, is a major advancement in the efficiency of nuclear energy production.
The United State Nuclear Regulatory Commission said, “General Electric (GE) currently plans to use the Australian laser enrichment technology known as Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation (SILEX) to enrich natural UF6 gas in the uranium-235 isotope. GE is planning to conduct the project in two phases, a test phase and a commercial-scale enrichment plant phase. The Test Loop, which is being built at GE’s nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA, will verify performance and reliability data for full scale (commercial-like) facilities. This engineering demonstration program is currently under construction. For the commercial-scale plant phase, GE submitted a license application in June 2009. On September 25, 2012, NRC staff issued a construction and operating license for the facility.”
Wikipedia describes the uranium enrichment process:
SILEX is an acronym for Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation, a technology developed in the 1990s for isotope separation to produce enriched uranium using lasers. In 2007, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) signed letters of intent for uranium enrichment services with Exelon and Entergy – the two largest nuclear power utilities in the USA.
Details of the SILEX process
According to Laser Focus World, the SILEX process exposes a cold stream of a mixture of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) molecules and a carrier gas to energy from a pulsed laser. The laser used is a CO2 laser operating at a wavelength of 10.8 μm (micrometres) and optically amplified to 16 μm, which is in the infrared spectrum. The amplification is achieved in a Raman conversion cell, a large vessel filled with high-pressure para-hydrogen.
The 16 μm wavelength laser preferentially excites the 235UF6, creating a difference in the isotope ratios in a product stream, which is enriched in 235U, and a tailings stream, which has an increased fraction of the more common 238U.[9] The Sydney Morning Herald reports that “The lasers electrically charge the atoms, which become trapped in an electromagnetic field and drawn to a metal plate for collection.”
According to John L. Lyman, the Silex Systems Ltd. (SSL) research facility in Australia uses a laser pulsed at a frequency of 50 Hz, a rate that results in great inefficiency. At 50 Hz, only 1% of the UF6 feedstock is processed. This results in a high fraction of feedstock entering the product stream and a low observed enrichment rates. Consequently, a working enrichment plant would have to substantially increase the laser duty cycle. In addition, the preparation time needed is prohibitively long for full-scale production. The SSL research facility requires ten hours of prep time for a one-hour enrichment test run, significantly restricting output.
Further details of the technology, such as how it differs from the older molecular laser isotope separation(MLIS) and atomic vapor laser isotope separation (AVLIS) processes are not known publicly. The technique can be used for the isotopic enrichment of chlorine, molybdenum and uranium, and similar technologies can be used with carbon and silicon.
Security classification of SILEX information
SILEX is also distinctive in that it is currently the only privately held information that is classified by the U.S. government. In June 2001, the U.S. Department of Energy classified “certain privately generated information concerning an innovative isotope separation process for enriching uranium.” Under the Atomic Energy Act, all information not specifically declassified is classified as Restricted Data, whether it is privately or publicly held. This is in marked distinction to the national security classification executive order, which states that classification can only be assigned to information “owned by, produced by or for, or is under the control of the United States Government.” This is the only known case of the Atomic Energy Act being used in such a manner