Plans to Convert More Weapons Plutonium

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-exec/2007/jul/19/071900454.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration plans to convert more weapons-grade plutonium into commercial reactor fuel than previously planned.

A senior Energy Department official said Thursday the department has concluded that additional tons of plutonium can be taken from dismantled warheads and disposed of, beyond the 34 tons already being converted to commercial fuel.

"It will be significant," Thomas D'Agostino, head of the department's nuclear weapons program, said in an interview, when asked how much additional plutonium might be set aside for conversion.

D'Agostino said he did not want to provide a specific number of tons because the matter was still being discussed with the Pentagon.

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[phantom power]

1. All I can think of is Niven's Law.

"There is no cause so noble, that some idiot won't adhere to it."

[NickB79]

2. So we're gonna convert WEAPONS into FUEL

This is bad how, exactly?

[Dogmudgeon]

3. You just don't understand!

The words "Bush" and "plutonium" appear in the same paragraph. That proves that nuclear energy is evil!

It's just logic. Duh!

:eyes:

--p!
... they (anti-nuclearists) honestly think that NEI pays everyone off, and that we're all NEI employees. Wrong. They simply, honestly, and truly do not understand that there is a difference between the industry and the supporters of the technology.
(NIOF)

[jpak]

6. Very bad

It will cost taxpayers billions to to build an operate the MOX fuel fabrication facilities...

and millions more to modify existing reactors to use MOX fuel...

and millions more to dispose of the highly radioactive spent fuel.

The fastest, cheapest, safest way to dispose of weapons-grade Pu is to blend it down, sinter it into a ceramic matrix and bury it.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. It's also the dumbest

There's a lot of joules in those weapons.

[TheWraith]

7. It's not, right now. The Bushies will find a way to fuck it up, I expect, since...

...I've never seen them do anything good that they didn't fuck up somehow. But yes, in general converting weapons grade material to reactor grade is pretty good idea.

[thecrow]

4. Yeah good, but my question is.... Why Now???

Ya think Pootie put the screws to Smirky in Kennebunkport?
Pootie has 30 days left on his bid to pull out of the nuke treaty... ya thing there is an ultimatum at hand?
Maybe Iran said something about us having all those nukes?

This is very peculiar and it isn't because * and Nuclear are mentioned in the same sentence.

[Javaman]

5. I'm curious as to how that is done. Considering that weapons grade

plutonium is of a much much much higher grade of material than that used in reactors.

[proffate]

8. Easy

Take 200Kg of depleted Uranium (100% U-238). Melt it, toss in a Weapons Pit( 11Kg of PU-239 ), stir, add other stuff for a proper alloy. Cast in to fuel pellets.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. It's being done every day

As a result of the SALT and START treaties, the USA and Russia (and the old USSR) burned up some of the bomb plutonium stockpiles in reactors for energy. There may be anti-nuclearists who claim that it can't be done, but it HAS been done, and on an industrial scale. You don't need the technical details to understand it, but if you are interested, there are several places on the web that will walk you through it -- I am not the one to ask for instruction in nuclear engineering!

A quick check on Google turned up two links which you may find worth looking at:

Disposition of Nuclear Weapons Material in the United States (A speech given by Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, NRC chief for President Clinton - brief, but a wonk's delight.)

World Nuclear Association - Plutonium and Plutonium Recycling (The WNA is pro-nuclear-energy, but this page is almost entirely technical, so should be free of politically objectionable opinion.)

--p!