U.S. plans radioactive project (Plutonium) -Original

NY Times ^ | 6/27/05

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

The Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 - a highly radioactive substance valued as a power source - since the Cold War, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. It is hot enough to melt plastic and so dangerous that a speck can cause cancer.

Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds, or 150 kilograms, over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. 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 declined to divulge any details.

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

He vigorously denied that any of the classified missions would involve nuclear arms, satellites or weapons in space...

[Willie Green]

Different isotopes of Plutonium (Pu-239 for bombs, Pu-238 for batteries),

Okay, that makes sense.
Different isotopes for different uses.

Half life of Plutonium means that existing stockpiles decay into *other* elements/isotopes over time (and we've been making Plutonium since 1939 at UCal),

Yeah, that's the stuff I'm in favor of reprocessing and recycling as best we can.

3. Costs of re-processing versus making from scratch.

Yeah, well the investment for recycling might be greater than what's needed to produce virgin material from scratch (resulting in a lower ROI.) But we still have to do SOMETHING with the so-called "waste". I figure that, instead of spending billions to just bury it, might as well run it through some kind of reactor and get some electricity out of it. That might not be as "efficient" as commercial nuclear reactors, but at least we'll be getting something useful out of the stockpiled "waste".

[Southack]

Works for me.