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US Should Cancel Plutonium Plant, Say Scientists
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Rachel Oswald reports that the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent science advocacy organization, says that the United States should cancel plans to build a multi-billion dollar plutonium research facility in New Mexico and criticizes Obama administration plans for nuclear facilities and weapons. They argue that the plans to build new fissile-material handling plants are unnecessarily ambitious given the expected future downward trajectory of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant (CMRR) building at Los Alamos would replace a Cold War-era site at a cost of $6 billion. It is intended to assist in ensuring new and existing plutonium pits are in working order absent a return by the country to nuclear-weapons testing. The 81-page UCS report, 'Making Smart Security Choices,' (PDF) says if the U.S. carries out limited reductions of its nuclear arsenal over the next-quarter century — as President Obama has said he would like to do — current facilities at Los Alamos can produce sufficient plutonium cores to maintain the warhead stockpile. The CMRR complex is designed to have the capacity to produce between 50 and 80 plutonium pits annually even though no more than 50 cores are needed yearly and Los Alamos currently has that production capability, says report co-author Lisbeth Gronlund. 'The idea that you would need to produce up to 80 [cores] is not warranted,' says Gronlund. 'We think it's time just to cancel the whole thing.'"
.... while the US, UK, and France haven't fielded new warheads or delivery systems since the 90s. Russia has deployed new ICBMs, a whole new class of SSBN, she just tested an "ICBM" that may well be a IRBM in disguise (running afoul of the INF in the process), and nobody is quite sure what China is up to with her nuclear arsenal. The latter bit is particularly troubling, at least with the Russians there's a diplomatic framework in place for each side to verify what the other has. The size of China's arsenal and her deployed delivery systems is a huge geopolitical question mark.
The West needs to maintain a credible deterrence force; this means modern warheads and delivery systems. At the same time, we really ought to be making an effort to bring China into a disarmament and verification diplomatic framework, the kind we've had with the Russians for decades. It baffles me that none of our leaders talk about China when discussing nuclear weapons policy.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I thought we needed to restart plutonium production for spacecraft RTGs?
What makes this "unnecessarily" ambitious rather than "necessarily" ambitious? Overwhelming nuclear force by a foe remains a means of defeating a MAD strategy. You can't counter that unless you have the capability to expand your own nuclear force in response.
What about using this to make scientific-grade plutonium for ourselves? There has been some news lately that the US has only a few dozen kilograms of non-weapons-grade plutonium left, putting the future of NASA's deep-space exploration program. If we had access to a dependable supplies, we might be able to really think about missions to Europa, Enceladus, and other places in the solar system where life may exist.
All the while, NASA's Plutonium shortage is threatening the future of deep space exploration.
as if Obama will take any of these recommendations seriously...
We don't need plutonium to manufacture nuclear batteries for deep space missions, no.
Idiots.
The Union of Concerned Scientists includes some scientists, but is an anti-nuclear political organization. This headline is like saying "Teenagers have unhealthy fantasies playing D&D, say mothers" amd omitting from the headline that "mothers" really refers to "Mothers Against Dungeons and Dragons".
It's bad enough Pluto got down-graded from a planet to a planetoid.
Now they want Pluto cancelled? No way!
Plutonium is also used on long-range spacecraft, and is critical to some missions.
JJ
What no one seems to get is that no one in federal government(*) cares what's right for society, for the people, or even for their own survival.
The purpose of government is to siphon funds away from individuals and give it to corporations. That's the length and breadth of it, there are no other considerations.
The purpose of airport security is to give money to scanner companies. (Oh, these scanners don't work? We'll throw them out and purchase your newer model.) The purpose of Obamacare is to give money to insurance agencies. The purpose of Obamaphone is to give money to the phone companies, the purpose of military spending is to give money to military contractors, and the purpose of the war on drugs is to give money to private prisons.
Every time one of these "this is the right move, but the government is doing the opposite" articles come up (one or two a day, it seems) it's framed in terms of an isolated, poor choice within a sea of government actions that are generally benevolent to the population and make our life better.
It's not an isolated incident, everything the federal government does has one purpose and makes sense within that framework. Occasionally it also benefits the people, but that's more happenstance than plan. It's the "random guess is occasionally correct" principle.
Federal government is a runaway train that's going to crash and burn, taking the country down with it. We can let this happen, or we can curtail it beforehand. Either way works, but fixing it beforehand would seem a better plan.
*Note: I'm making a distinction between federal and state government. Most of the federal government could disappear without negative impact on the people. And yes, I said "most".
The union of concerned scientists is effectively a front for Greenpeace. They are rabidly anti-nuclear in any regard. It's a bit like saying your going to claim the Tea Party to be neutral on taxes.
Thirty seconds worth of Googling shows that the Union of Concerned Scientists is an environmental business, like Greenpeace, not "an independent science advocacy organization." Is it really a news story than a bunch of environmentalists are anti-nuke?
I thought it was Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, not Mothers Against Dungeons and Dragons... so hard to keep track these days...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
We've have four presidents now (two of each party) who have presided over the biggest intentional downgrade of a nation in world history. All four have increased the wealth redistribution programs so greatly that these items are consuming the national budget and the budget projection software at the non-partisan CBO is no longer able to project a workable financial situation past 2040; Food Stamps alone (now re-named "SNAP" to avoid offending or embarrassing those who are using government to force their neighbors to buy them food) doubled under Bush43 and has now redoubled under Obama to about $80 billion (Obama grew food stamps by nearly twice the budget of NASA which is significantly under $20 billion). The US Navy is half the size it was before these 4 presidents, the US Air Force and Army have been similarly reduced (all the stats about the US spending more on military are because we buy very expensive high-tech and pay our personnel (as opposed to conscripting them) and our weapons systems are built by well-paid unionized workers on cost-plus (guaranteed profit) contracts. Having a much greater plutonium processing capacity that what is now proposed used to be a "given" in the US but here we are proposing a capability to maintain our shrunken arsenal and produce the plutonium needed for things like NASA deep space probes and yet we have some idiots fighting the proposal. China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea (plus an unknown number of other nations working in secret and not drawing attention to themselves) are all upgrading their nuclear weapons capabilities (and their delivery systems) but leftists are always looking to put the brakes on an American capability to even hold the line at where we are. The fevered lefty idea that the US should downgrade further while the rest of the world upgrades (which is what the anti-US Marxists at the UCS... and YES that's what they've always been) is positively insane. President Obama, arguably the most left-leaning president in history, agreed to this new facility as part of his claim that his defense plans were not going to harm the US; without the plant therefore even the Obama admin admits they are harming the US defense posture. This weakness will lead to war at some point in the future (not little wars like Iraq or Afghanistan but real, big, all-out war) if not reversed... all of human history bears testament to the sad fact that weakness in a rich complacent nation-state invites war.
Every non-welfare tech program (military or not) which is unconnected to the agenda of downgrading the nation (for example by switching the nation to artificially expensive and inefficient power sources) is either shrinking or being actively opposed by the lefties at places like UCS; they hope young people will not notice the nation is no longer a superpower until after this reduction in status is achieved (they used to openly admit their desire to do this), just as they hope the young will not notice the lack of jobs their economic policies are creating and the high taxes their redistributionist policies are creating... until so many unproductive people depend on their programs that the limited number of productive people cannot achieve any reductions. An 18-year old today in the US has a much dimmer future than the one an 18-year old faced in the mid-60's or in the mid-80's...... but they are being "educated" not to know this as an economic noose is slowly placed about their necks. in fiscal 2013 we paid $222.75 BILLION in interest payments on the national debt; if interest rates rise even 1% this would jump to well over $300 billion PER YEAR. This is why America has no giant tech programs like Kennedy's moon shot, or a big fusion push, or a Mars program, etc. and doing the bidding of left-wing extremists like the boys at UCS who have always wrapped their politics in the cloak of "science" will only lead further down this rabbit hole of collapse.
My greatest fear is that these politically powerful fools will one day hurt our defense posture so mortally that we will come under nuclear attack. I am not sure that's not what they actually want. They despise all human life. Which is just disgusting.
We all have this super power. It's called, "Making-Everyone-Hate-You". Working on compromises can trigger the power, as can doing the right thing in general. The real test of strength is how you respond to the resulting vitriol. Do you cave under pressure, or do you continue to do what you believe in and demonstrate integrity?
I want my wmd.
And I want it now!
They're the same people. It says so in my Players Handbook.
How are they going to make a back to the future remake without plutonium?
I notice all the fuss rests on the tension created by the phrase " expected future downward trajectory of the U.S. nuclear arsenal". Now what Rocket Surgeon actually expects there to be a future downward trajectory of the U.S. nuclear arsenal? Allies? Enemies? Penguins surfing Dubai? Snake handling faith healers? Nope, poll says everyone is pretty sure everyone is building nuke weapons, so they are buffing up too. That downward trajectory stuff, is just the horseapple pie that the press serves to the public. I didn't eat it, did you? Did you cave under pressure or continue to hold out for ice cream and demonstrate vulgar finger signs?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
First we spy on the whole world. Then we build a plutonium plant, totally not for mass destruction weapons.
What could possibly go wrong?
I know for a fact that this new CMRR facility would be safer than the old one. There has been a complete overhaul of the health physics program designed to make this new facility much safer. Not to mention that old facility is very contaminated and really has outlived its shelf life.
They don't like the extra capacity, fine, make the new facility and scale back the capacity. But you will notice that is not what they are asking for, they just want to cancel the damn thing.
This is just typical of the political paralysis that surrounds Los Alamos. Once you mention the words Los Alamos or Plutonium these "concerned scientists" shut off their brains completely and go with an approach that is little more than a totally political position, instead of something realistic. If you travel to New Mexico you will see the billboards that these idiots put up showing an atomic explosion saying "No new nuclear bomb factory for New Mexico"
I personally am against nuclear weapons, but while we do have them and maintain them we need to use modern and safe methods for working on them and controlling them in modern facilities.
I say we go back to building as many nukes as we can as fast as we can. The more we have, the better.
Very insightful post. Not to mention the fact that right now we are suffering from a severe plutonium shortage that is jeopardizing future space missions - nearly all of our long-term space missions rely on plutonium-powered radioisotope thermal generators.
.: Semper Absurda
Thank you.
Yes this too. With the new CMRR facility they will be able to fashion batteries for deep space missions (or pacemakers or whatever). There is really no way around using a facility such as this one to safely make batteries from these highly radioactive and toxic materials. Where else do people think they can manufacture these batteries, a garage somewhere?
We NEED highly secure, safe, and modern facilities to handle materials such as Actinides. Even for completely peaceful purposes we need them.
A bit of history for you - the massive stockpile was mostly there for political propaganda use instead of any possible military use. The "downward trajectory" is happening as the number of US atomic weapons declines with age towards the number of things that can deliver them. The decline in the US and Russia far exceeds the worst estimates of anyone else building anything new.
We are having a huge shortage of several forms of plutonium and some of the other byproducts of nuclear fission (helium for example) in several of our scientific fields. Most of the cold-war era plants have shut down because we don't want any more weapons nor the risk of clean nuclear energy from the 70s, we'd rather set back medical imaging and energy production back a century than have safe -BUT NUCULAR- (and 50 years more progressive than the current average nuclear plant) energy production in our backyard.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Why? To intimidate more of the Middle East countries from geopolitical blackmail to buffering more terrorism.
A bit of history for you- chumps believe anything the government approves for mass consumption. North Korea is escalating their raspberry posturing along with military capability (maybe so, maybe no), Iran is/wants to be in the game, many small countries have large organizations that aren't beneath dirty bombs.
Don't tell me squat about downward trajectory unless you mean some statistical credibility according to some self appointed authority.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Nuclear missiles may be the obvious use of plutonium, but does this article completely forget about the lack of this material concerning space exploration. The need for this material in the future is going to increase exponentially. I can't imagine how much of this stuff it would take to get to another planet that has liquid water.
Just because you use the name "Scientists" in your title and you claim to be "independent" doesn't mean you don't have an agenda. 2 minutes of looking reveals the UCS is pretty much an anti-nuke environmental advocacy group. Greenpeace is independent also.
but it's worth considering that quantity differs from effectiveness in nuke scenarios. If North Korea (for example) built just one bomb that had greater than a fizzle yield when they set it off at Pier 39 in San Francisco, I think it would be enormously influential on the U.S. It would far outweigh the historical integrated influence of the Russian nuclear arsenal, which although enormously greater numerically, has never been used against anyone. Never underestimate the power of fanatics who actually *do* something compared to those who are content with mere potential.
Isn't the article just about a facility for manufacturing plutonium pits? I.e. making weapons from plutonium.
AFAIK, Pu-238 can be produced as y by-product when producing Pu-239 for weapons (or it can be made another way). But to me this facility just looks like something that uses weapons-grade Pu-239 and turns it weapons.
Philipp
"And we're going to hear Hannity and Rush criticize Obama for his pro-nuclear agenda?" Yes.
Plutonium is not needed for weapons. There is plenty enough for that, and there is no need for more weapons (existent stock is sufficient to any nuclear conflict - modernization will be done on the weapon systems, not the nuclear detonation payloads).
However, there is not enough Plutonium for space exploration. US reserves are empty and even Russian ones are set to be dilapidated in a few (very small quantity of years).
How can you send a new Voyager space probe without Plutonium?
Wrong isotope. What's scarce is Pu-238, what's used in bombs is pretty pure Pu-239 (aka 'weapons grade'), and what's plentiful is a mix of Pu-239, -240, -241 (aka 'reactor grade'). WTF was this modded 'Interesting'?!
Isn't that the interesting piece of news here? Sure we have Putin already doing this but...
I notice all the fuss rests on the tension created by the phrase " expected future downward trajectory of the U.S. nuclear arsenal".
I guess that means we shouldn't build any more nuclear weapons until we've used the ones we've got.
Waste not , want not.
We really should do upgrades and recycle instead of buying a new toy every time.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Are you really serious??? So because China a Russia are blowing money and resources on making new nukes, the US had better do it too?
For fucks sake man, the US has near-as-makes-no-difference 8000 nuclear weapons. Even if they were the original style we dropped on Japan, who fucking cares???
It is a nuke and there are 8000 tries to get somewhat near a target.
No, I am sure you are right. China will say, Hey Russia let's attack the US with nukes because they have only 8000 bombs from the 90's.
Brainwashed much?
Get your daddy with the low slashdot ID to tell you about how very large organisations have a lot of trouble keeping big secrets.
Proper
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The current facilities will not be able to maintain the reduce stockpile. What, do people think stuff just maintains itself?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I was hoping it was some breeder reactor project to use some of the waste currently being buried for something useful.
I should've known better.
There's been a very major operation since then in a different country which was in all the papers and on TV as well.
"The proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant (CMRR) building at Los Alamos would replace a Cold War-era site at a cost of $6 billion. It is intended to assist in ensuring new and existing plutonium pits are in working order absent a return by the country to nuclear-weapons testing"
Which is, of course, precisely the mission requirement that the National Ignition Facility was supposed to solve.
But given that NIF was never really very useful for that role (ask anyone that doesn't work at LLNL) and continues to behave precisely like every other ICF device built at the lab (fail) I can't say I'm surprised that another $6 billion is being called for.
SSMP has now cost well into the tens of billions, consists of dozens of major devices, and still says it doesn't have the answers. All this to keep up appearances on weapons that have no realistic release scenario, in spite of all the bright minds trying to think up ways to use them.
Enough already. There's plenty of jobs for physicists in industry, let them go and make things that will actually improve the world rather that flogging the dead horsemen of the apocalypse.
"nearly all of our long-term space missions rely on plutonium-powered radioisotope thermal generators"
That's because it was available.
It is, obviously, possible to make RTG's out of other materials.
Or use other power sources entirely, like TOPAZ.
It is, obviously, possible to make RTG's out of other materials.
Sure, like Sr-90. But they don't work as well as Pu-238. Sr-90 is considered second best and its half-life is about 1/3 as long and power density about 20% lower.
As for TOPAZ, it's certainly viable. But total reactor mass is still several times greater than a Plutonium powered RTG.
.: Semper Absurda