Explosive issue pits future jobs against nukes

[NVMojo]

The federal government is looking for a place to resume what it stopped doing 17 years ago at its notorious Rocky Flats facility in Colorado: manufacturing the metal cores at the heart of nuclear weapons. And this time it has Southern Nevada in its sights.

The Nevada Test Site, the Rhode Island-sized swath of federal land used for decades for above- and below-ground test detonations of nuclear bombs, is one of five places in the country under consideration to host the manufacturing process.

Intrinsic to the process is the manufacturing of plutonium - a task that is both industrial and high-tech that would bring jobs and educational opportunities to the Las Vegas region. It also conjures up memories of environmental nightmares and, opponents argue, unnecessarily escalates the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.

The weapon cores, called "pits," are manufactured from an isotope of plutonium - a toxic metal formed by exposing uranium to radiation in a nuclear reactor, then chemically or mechanically isolating the metal. The federal government got into the business of making plutonium pits during the Manhattan Project in World War II. The research, design and manufacture of nuclear weapons continued over the next five decades at 16 sites scattered around the United States - many of which have left legacies of serious ongoing environmental problems.

Rocky Flats, outside Denver, was the primary manufacturing plant for all nuclear weapons, employing 10,000 people during the height of production in the mid-1980s.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2006/dec/01/566686350.html

Graphic
http://www.lasvegassun.com/graphics/nuclearcycle.pdf

[Redstone]

1. The fuck? WE already have about 30,000 nukes. Why the HELL would we

want to make more?

I understand that they do "wear out" as they get old, but for Christ's sake, we have thirty thousand of the monstrous things. That's gotta be enough to last a while.

Redstone

[Flaxbee]

3. money - nothing but money and greed

and crazy ass "Cold Warriors" who think the only way to solve problems is to threaten to blow up the earth itself.

It is pure insanity, Redstone, I'm sorry to say. I wish we could do away with nuclear energy and nuclear weapons altogether.

[Redstone]

4. Nuclear energy CAN be safe. Look at France. 70% of their juice comes from nukes,

with never an accident. And there's an interesting meltdown-proof design coming out of China.

Solar would be great, but it's not affordable yet.

Redstone

[truthisfreedom]

5. nuclear's startup costs are way too prohibitive. check out nanosolar.com

if you want to see leading-edge technology, and beaconpower.com for amazing power storage technology.

[Redstone]

8. Oh, yes, I've seen their stuff. Now, if we could only get the federal gov't to invest in

this stuff instead of pissing away the national treasure in Iraq...

Redstone

[Flaxbee]

7. but the by-products are never safe, and really, one

accident is all it takes to destroy an area for a looong time. A family member has first hand experience of Chernobyl after the accident, and man o man o man, it'd be better for EVERYONE to if there were no nukes whatsoever.

The only reason nuclear is "affordable" here is b/c the gov't subsidizes it. Nuclear plants can't get typical insurance, start up costs are high, perpetually toxic waste. Germany always was safe about their nuclear power, too, but has decided (at least, pre-Merkel, I don't know if there has been a change) to scrap it - too much risk.

[lapfog_1]

2. Yeah, folks in Nevada should ask people in Denver how

that whole "Rocky Flats" thing worked out.

[Wildewolfe]

6. As much as I hate nukes...

... They are probably with us to stay in the long term...

The problem is the majority of the nukes were manufactured, face it, a long long time ago.

Tritium has a half life of something like 12.5 years at which time the weapon becomes seriously degraded. Tritium is used on the fusion side of the bomb and is used to beef up the fission side as well, though some other compounds can be used in place of tritium theoretically it hasn't been done in the fission triggers.

Some of the older models don't use the safer forms of the chemical explosives used to initiate the reaction and are not safe to transport. i.e. an accident COULD cause a detonation.

I think a great deal of this new emphasis on building bombs is to replace 30 year old and in some cases unsafe tech with stuff that is easier and cheaper to maintain that is in addition much safer to store.

Incidently the 32,000 warheads figure was from the height of the cold war (1966). The current stockpiles are around 5700 usable with a reserve of 4200 that are not immediately usable. Still a horrid amount of destructiveness.

I don't see us giving up the nuclear sword anytime soon though. Given that, I would prefer smaller and safer weapons in the stockpile myself.

2 pennies worth and not even worth that...;p

[lapfog_1]

9. This isn't the point.

It's about how environmentally safe they can be making whatever devices they make. At Rocky Flats (I used to live not to far from there) they were criminally inept at and poisoned the ground water there for generations to come. Just something for whoever lives near where they move this activity to think about.

[NVMojo]

10. the Nevada Test site is 65 miles from Las Vegas region where 2 million

people live and play.