" U.S. Has Plans to Again Make Own Plutonium"

[GreenPartyVoter]

The Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 since the cold war, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. The substance, valued as a power source, is so radioactive that a speck can cause cancer.

Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Officials say the program could cost $1.5 billion and generate more than 50,000 drums of hazardous and radioactive waste.

Project managers say that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions and they declined to divulge any details. But in the past, it has powered espionage devices.

"The real reason we're starting production is for national security," Timothy A. Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the Energy Department, said in a recent interview.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0627-02.htm

[acmejack]

1. Talk to this person

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x26280

edit to fix link

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Interesting. I agree we go off on tangents like "Oh no! Terrorists.. Shark

attacks! Kidnappers!!" However my concern is that I am anti-nukes and ** is finding all kinds of weaselly ways to get back into the proliferation business.. such as the plutonium and the so-called "bunker busters".

[lenidog]

7. Acmejack the links keep telling us to talk to GPV

This GPV so he really can have that much of a thread with himself.

[kittenpants]

2. hmmm, what would bush do? maybe the world should sanction us for this

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. That's a clever sig graphic :^D

[Walt Starr]

3. Ahhhhh, Plutonium 238. The deadliest substance known to man.

I would hate to think of what would happen if the wrong people got ahold of some of this crap. A bomb is unnecessary. Think of a couple of pounds dropped in Lake Mead.

Truly a frightening concept.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Yes it is. It's just one more poison for Bu$co to make us sick with.