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NASA Restarts Plutonium Production
Celarent Darii writes "In what looks like good news for the American Space program, NASA has restarted production of plutonium. According to the article, after the closure of Savannah Rivers reactor NASA purchased plutonium from Russia, but since 2010 this was no longer possible. The native production of plutonium is a step forward for the space program to achieve the energy density for long term space exploration."
Maybe if NASA is really good Santa will bring them some plutonium.
And if space exploration doesn't work out anymore we can always get into arms dealing.
It's so they can go back to 1955.
My first thought upon reading the summary was that if the Savannah River Site is closed, where are they making the new plutonium?
The answer, according to TFA, is the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm sure they'll say if solar isn't good enough, we should use (solar) wind power :P
if Iran will impose sanctions on the United States...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Am I wrong in thinking the UK has a plutonium stockpile it really doesn't know what to do with? Simply not juicy enough?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21505271
jh
RTGs are designed to survive both the explosion and an uncontrolled impact with the ground.
Even if ruptured by the impact, plutonium is an immensely dense material - it's not easily scattered.
it scatters in smoke just fine. look up "windscale fire"
You'll be ok
.... make up your mind?
You used to produce Plutonium and you saw it was good. But then man got greedy and raced upward to the skies and eat from the forbidden fruit. And complicated-gdp-involving-economy-formula was not happy and it convinced you that it was bad. And Plutonium was no more, Savannah Rivers dropped the Rivers and became a p0rn5tar and the fallen from grace NASA purchased plutonium from Russia. Now there is what looks like good news, the saviour will be born, the native plutonium-producer child of NASA. A step forward for the space program to achieve the energy density for long space exploration. After a jump backward, sort of.
I wish we just got rid of the jumps backward.
We can just start reprocessing existing spent fuel and recover the material we need from that?
We will actually kill multiple birds with this... First, you get the material you wanted. Second, you don't create any new nuclear waste in the process, though it will change forms some and get somewhat smaller. Third, you can create new fuel assemblies and actually use the remaining fuel that is just sitting in pools of water right now. Not to mention that it will actually do something about the used fuel assemblies that are just sitting around waiting for something to happen.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
An RTG falling out of the sky may hurt if it hits you on the head but other than that it's mostly harmless. Besides we already spread Pu all over the globe in the 60's and 70's, it's now a geological layer marking our entry into the nuclear age for millions of years to come..
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"I'm sure that in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 1955, it's a little hard to come by."
At least we won't have to buy it from the Libyans any more. It's tough to get enough plutonium to reach 1.21 Jiggawatts at 88mph!
is Plutonium still considered an atom?
repost to correct typo:
The Pu in the fuel rods is not the right isotope, it is almost all Pu239 (U238 + neutron = Pu239, [after a stage as Np239]). NASA needs Pu238. What Pu238 is in there would be a real bear to separate from the Pu239 (more difficult than the separation of U235 from U238 because the mass difference is less).
Mod parent informative. Plutonium burns readily, and oxide particles can be scattered widely. OTOH, RTGs are built to survive all kinds of launch failure, including pad fire and uncontrolled reentry. Also, the amount of Pu in an RTG is 1-4 kg, less than what has been released in all but the puniest atmospheric nuclear tests, which the humanity has survived rather well. So, no apocalyptic zombie hordes as a result of even a faulty RTG burnup.
The wiki article on that fire notes that it released large amounts of iodine-131. The fire was caused by attempting to produce plutonium, not by burning plutonium and the reports on its cause seem to be either uranium and magnesium/lithium cartridges.
Plutonium dioxide is already oxidized. It's chemically impossible for it to catch fire, and again, dense and heavy with a high melting point.
Hundreds. HL is 87 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
For the folks who don't know, we are talking about plutonium 238. This has a half live of 88 years so decays rapidly and produces a fair amount of heat. Using thermocouples this can be used to generate power with no moving parts. The decay route is alpha particles which are fairly easy to shield against. Your favorite bomb material plutonium 239 has a half life of 24000 years which leaves it safer to handle but not useful for thermoelectric generation
you need more information. the pu-238 used in RTGs is in oxide form, bound with Oxygen 16 to absorb the occasional neutron (it is mostly an alpha emitter) that can be formed. So, the pu-238 is "already burned", in a sense, and in a form to be safer to humans.
We didn't stop producing plutonium just because it wasn't economically feasible (when did that stop the government from doing anything) -- the history of plutonium in the United States has been littered with accidents and costly, multi-decade cleanup projects that cost billions of dollars. See Rocky Flats, et al.
The isotope of PU used by NASA is not the type you make bombs from. I guess you could freak people out by spreading some radioactive material with a 'dirty bomb' - but basically, dirty bombs are a psychological weapon more than an actual hazard - they get people to panic and hurt themselves. They don't do much or any direct damage.
They type NASA uses won't fission (which is what you need for a nuclear mushroom-cloud, city destroying type explosion). It only decays, and as it decays, it produces a lot of heat and radiation (which, in a spacecraft, gets converted to heat also). NASA uses the heat to create electric power using a device called an RTG - Radioisotope thermal generator, which directly converts heat to electricity without any turbines (although, much less efficiently than a steam or gas turbine, but that's not a big concern for NASA).
Well, that is disappointing.
No brain, no pain.
Man, at least get the meme right. Somebody set up us the bomb, not set us up the bomb. Sheesh!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Wait, so you don't see any difference between a government lead by a bunch of religious extremists who put dogma before facts, human welfare and compassion, and. . . Iran? Wait. . . maybe the US shouldn't have nukes. . .
Stupid thorium.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Apollo 13's lunar module was carrying an RTG; it burned up over the Pacific. The RTG's container is still intact at the bottom of the Tonga Trench and is expected to remain so for at least ten half-lives. This was in 1970.
I think we'll be okay.
Hell, when one of the Transit sattelites failed to achieve orbit and burned up over Madagascar, it was using an early RTG design that didn't have adequate shielding; worldwide cancer rates didn't double.
Don't correct your UID elders, boy!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
1g of Pu-238 produces .5 watts, which is really useful for long-lasting portable devices. There are some early pacemakers running from Pu-238 that are still operational.
For example, a few grams of Pu-238 could power an iPhone for a century without ever recharging...
(but would cost tens of thousands of dollars..)
Well, I did just that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
Seems like plenty of nasty stuff escapted, but no plutonium...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=lftr+Plutonium-238
But US laws exists to prevent developing the technology created in the 70s in the US.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I had heard they had less than 30 Kgs left and it took at least 5 kgs to run the older style RTGs. The newer Stirling RTGs increase efficiency some.
Plus the cost at $4M a kilo was becoming significant.
Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
NASA didn't produce plutonium. DoE's Oak Ridge, TN facility did. NASA just issued the press release. NASA is good at that.
So first we hear about funding problems at NASA.
Now we hear about NASA producing plutonium. So how are they planning on funding this plutonium operation? Hopefully it isn't by selling it on the internet*** to raise money ;^)
** Yes, you can actually buy radioactive isotopes on the internet. For example, from these guys here. Of course these guys don't sell plutonium, so NASA would be able to have a monopoly on that ;^)
Now get off my lawn!
Getting tired of Slashdot... moving to Usenet comp.misc for a while.
If I were a certain show off in Iran, I would openly communicate to the Satin's of the West; that Iranian Plutonium is not some mickey mouse pop off. And that Iran offers better rates than NASA can get from any other Satin selling the stuff. Just a thought...
Several RTGs have survived launch failures. Generally they're fished out of the ocean or picked up off the tundra, refurbished, and reused.
Of course this means nothing to the anti-nuke crowd, like Helen Caldicott. I used to hang out with quite a few of them back in the '80s, and their agenda (most of the ones that I knew anyway) isn't really as much anti-nuclear as anti-technology. Luddites of the worst order.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Never underestimate the power of chemistry to make unintentionally broad statements concerning lack of ability to catch fire look silly. You assume burning in air. Chemists merely look for a stronger oxidizer. Muahahaha....
IIRC, ingesting even a small amount of pu-238 is dangerous. Alpha particles don't travel far, except in vacuum, so they decay and damage the cells in your body, including the DNA strands. You are actually safer with an equivalent amount of gamma radiation, because you only get damage from the particles that decay inside of your body and not from the ones that pass on through.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
So much ignorance in such a short post. No wonder you post AC.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The Stirling RTG uses moving parts which are not required with a standard RTG. Seems like, for decades-long missions like Voyager, additional moving parts just add another potential failure point.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
ingesting in a form your body will retain (say metallic or salt) is dangerous. but a glass or ceramic won't be kept.
Never underestimate the power of chemistry to make unintentionally broad statements concerning lack of ability to catch fire look silly. You assume burning in air. Chemists merely look for a stronger oxidizer. Muahahaha....
Are rockets launched with thousands of kilos of fluorine-based oxidizer?
I'm assuming we're talking about a rocket launch failure of a plutonium-dioxide based RTG. These devices have a long history of safe operation by now, with the most extreme test being the lunar lander splashdown after Apollo 13 where the RTG survived the crash intact. Prior to that there have been several instances of rupture, but provided they remain rare, the risks posed these uncommon events are still low.
Wow. Rather than acknowledge that your statement, which I took pains to highlight was unintentionally overbroad, was contradicted by a rather cool video of some more common oxides catching fire, you felt the need to be an ass by dragging in a number of points which neither the post that you responded to, your original post, or the specifically quoted statement actually reference.
1. Are rockets launched with thousands of kilos of fluorine-based oxidizer? Possibly What ISP do you want? Nevermind that plutonium dioxide is "burned" with fluorine in some plutonium enrichment processes. Thank you, Wikipedia.
2. We're talking about a rocket launch failure involving an RTG? The parent wasn't, and you weren't in your response, both of which were referring to a nuclear pile fire. I sure as hell wasn't. However, I'm happy to assume that we're talking about a fluorine-oxidized rocket fuel so long as one person can unilaterally assume things for the other.
3. RTGs have a long history of safe operation. Irrelevant. You mentioned an oxidation state, then said that it is "chemically impossible for plutonium dioxide to catch fire." Not a word about an RTG, a rocket explosion, limits on the chemicals involved... nada. Well, there are more oxidizers in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your meager visions of chemistry.
I suggest that you learn to deal with minor mistakes in more self-deprecating manner. Ass.
Hi, this is the parent of this particular topic parent which I started replying too:
If the vehicle burns up on launch or explodes at a low altitude there goes the county, launch facility, what have you.
If it burn up in the upper atmosphere perhaps world wide cancer rates double or there goes any thing where the jet stream stears the fallout event for the next 6 months or so. So just saying... great for the space program though... parse... parse... ; )
See how we're talking about rockets there? See how the general article is talking about plutonium for RTG use.
Now all those things being apparent, can you perhaps see how a discussion on a very complex scenario where we intentionally try to make plutonium oxide burn is irrelevant - except - as I pointed out - if a rocket was actually using thousands of kilos of fluorine-based propellant. Which, as your link points out, they don't because although you can build an engine powered by it, handling fluorine in quantities like that is incredibly toxic in every possible capacity, environmentally devastating and not a currently used fuel in commercial launchers for all these reasons.
A little too late for my tastes.
Happy hear that nobody uses hydrazine as a propellant due to toxicity and environmental devastation either.
The post that you replied to in your actual overbroad post:
It's chemically possible. Your statement was comically overbroad. Deal with it. Your zeal to defend RTGs (which I agree are safe, BTW) does not excuse it.
Ok. Let's deal with overbroad:
We live in an oxygen rich environment. There is oxygen everywhere. When something is left out in the open, it slowly oxidizes to some form of oxide.
Unless you have exceptionally specific, extreme circumstances, this means something which is at it's maximum oxidation state will not burn.
We do not live in a fluorine permeated atmosphere. We don't have accidental piles of trifluorochlorine lying around. Commercial rockets themselves are not run on reactive fluorine fuels. The failure mode of a rocket launching would be to combust in an oxygen atmosphere with liquid oxygen and kerosene fuels, or the aluminum-based solid oxide fuel.
So again: it's not "comically overbroad", you're being pedantic. Because fluorine and specifically trifluorochlorine is literally the only way that a maximally oxidized metal compound is going to "burn".
Aluminum-based solid oxide fuel is also a mis-type, it should be ammonium perchlorate (which has aluminum in it I think - IANARS). Got mixed up in thinking about oxides solid-oxide fuel cells :)
Uh, no. I said hundreds. Implying several half lives.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure