Slashdot Mirror
London Nuke Plant Loses 30 Kilos of Plutonium
solafide writes "The Globe and Mail reports 'A British nuclear-reprocessing plant [at Sellafield] cannot account for nearly 30 kilograms of plutonium, but authorities believe it is an accounting issue rather than a loss of potential bomb-making material, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority said.' Although it says later plutonium is only 1% of what they deal with there. The Times Online has more details."
Uranium regeneration is a good thing. A nuclear reactor only uses about 4% of the uranium until it has to be either discarded or regenerated (because of reduced efficiency issues) but the regeneration process makes plutonium, which can then be used in a bomb. Most of the time, the plutonium is actually mixed with uranium and it can then be used as a fuel.
Hopefully fusion will come along sometime soon...
Remember after 9/11 and some nuclear plant had some rods missing. It was another accounting error i think. Never heard much more about it.
Hmm, Sellafield is not a city. It's a village 300 miles from London in the middle of nowhere known only for having a nuclear power plant.
When you take scale into account, saying Sellafield is in London is totally like saying the Grand Canyon is in Washington D.C.
And what are you on about? The UK has a lot of open land. It's nothing like the US, but more of the UK is fields or moor than anything else.
I watched this news article on BBC world last night (am British living in forign country). The BBC world account of this story did highlight a couple of points that take the wind out of this sensationalist post.
1. The missing 30Kg is discrepancy between the estimated amount of reclaimed fuel and the actual amount for a whole yeare (See previous post). As any engineer involved with nuclear reclamation will tell you there is no precise method of calculating the amount of fuel that will be reclaimed from nuclear waste until after it has been reclaimed.
2. On several occasions (years) Sellafield has reclaimed more fuel than estimated.
Paul Gogarty
Dirty bombs aren't any more nasty than regular bombs. Because there's no chain reaction, and because the radioactive material is blown up, the amount of radiation is extremely diffuse. Both the US and Iraqi governments have experimented with dirty bomb tests, and concluded that the danger is simply in fear of radiation - it's unlikely anyone would get radiation poisoning. The BBC covers this in their documentary "The Power of Nightmares," as well.
What's shocking? You sound like you're still viewing nuclear technology as some sort of mystical phenomena. I guess Arthur C. Clarke was right. ;)
;) That's the level of detail that's out there.
Perhaps information about nuclear physics was hard to come by in the early 1950s, but nowadays it takes no effort to learn about. Heck, I once ran into a paper discussing ways to manufacture effective seals for a gas centrifuge plant
Ever read about the "Nuclear Boy Scout"? As far as I could tell when trying to see if it was an urban legend, it checks out - a teenager built a simple nuclear reactor for generating small amounts of plutonium in his back yard (pitchblende, beryllium foil for generating neutrons from alpha particles, and radium paint (used for luminous dials)). It wasn't good for much except endangering the health of those who spend too much time near it, but it just goes to show what you can do.
The hard part isn't learning how nuclear tech works; it's pretty much public domain. The hard part is the implementation. The scale of operations that you need, the corrosive chemicals that you're dealing with (and depending on your method, many other constraints as well) are what limit nuclear tech to states willing to invest significant resources.
"Well, then fire it up and show me what this..." (sigh)
Simple to clean up? Tell that to people still working at Chernobyl! The amount of material released was 27kg of caesium-137.
I realize it's not very effective as a weapon with direct results but should be enough to make a point.
The total cancer deaths added to the world over time with the Chernobyl disaster is estimated at 1.5 milion. After some googling it appears Caesium and Plutonium have similar effects:
These novel man-made radioactive isotopes like Strontium-90, Caesium-137 and Plutonium-239, become inhaled as fine particles and trapped in lung tissue. They are then absorbed into the lymphatic system of the body where they cause cancer by irradiating local cells and attacking the immune system. Recent research undertaken by Green Audit in Wales and funded by the Irish government has shown that excess cancer risk exists in those populations of towns on the north Wales coast which are adjacent to mud banks and estuaries where high levels of such radioactive isotopes are found.