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Program to Use Russian Nukes for US Electricity Comes to an End
gbrumfiel writes "For the past two decades, about 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads. Under a program called Megatons to Megawatts, Russian highly-enriched uranium was pulled from old bombs and made into fuel for nuclear reactors. NPR News reports that the program concludes today when the last shipment arrives at a U.S. storage facility. In all nearly 500 tons of uranium was recycled, enough for roughly 20,000 warheads."
The US is a leader because we don't just talk big on the internet and rave into video cameras.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Our proven uranium reserves would last us over 200 years at current consumption; Well beyond the life expectancy of any of our reactors. The only reason for this program was to provide a failing country with a cheap way of disposing of highly hazardous materials without losing face. It is the proverbial "turning a negative into a positive". It will have zero effect on our energy costs or programs.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Wow, careful with all that straw, man, you're liable to start a fire! There's uranium around, you don't want to see what happens when it overheats.
You should leave the Anti-Americanism to the faculty of American universities.
They're much better at it.
Yes, apparently you wiretap the internet and install the video cameras.
Because, you know, that's clearly being the champions of freedom and liberty -- or more accurately, your own at the expense of everyone else's.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because if we wanted to nuke the hell outta someone, we wouldn't need Russian uranium to do it.
I think you're confusing irony with tragedy.
It's not a matter of being more trusted. It's a matter of the US going to the trouble to negotiate a deal with Russia to dispose of the unneeded fissionable material. France, UK, Japan, etc. could have done it instead ... if they had tried.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Would you prefer the Russians sold their warheads on E-bay?
We didn't install the cameras we just accessed the ones you already had set up.
All your warheads are belonging to us.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
Action has that consequence, you fuck up a lot.
But then you learn from it and move on.
Mea Culpa.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
It was actually a trick. Now we have to pay to be rid of the spent fuel. Pretty smart, the Russians.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Really? REALLY??? Do you have any idea what was happening in Russia after the USSR fell apart? They were in some serious economic trouble. Securing nuclear assets was of vital importance not just to us, but to them and the entire world. If anything we didn't do enough. I heard there were RTGs left to rust in Siberia. Some of their naval nukes were also mothballed under questionable circumstances.
I'm the first to admit that the USA's actions aren't always for the best; but not in this case.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
France, UK, Japan, etc. could have done it instead ... if they had tried.
Guess they were leading from behind.
And that's probably the real reason for the soviet block. Told this way it would seem that a whole country, an the biggest on Earth, with below-zero temperatures most of the year, needed missiles to keep warm.
Actually I remember reading long time ago (and curiously an African guy agreed) that in Africa the one eating is not the one with the food, but the one with the gun. I suppose you could now say that in Asia the one getting warm is not the one with the energy, but the one with the energy turned into a weapon.
Anyway Africa and Asia should not complain, it seems that for them Europe is just the Bin for what they don't want. London's logic...
Direct heating from the warheads would have been more efficient that making electricity in power plants and then passing it through heaters. Even more so if they didn't leave the thermonuclear component out.
Ezekiel 23:20
You mean, we pay to ship it to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina because we never could agree on a permanent storage solution at Yucca Mountain. We won't be completely rid of it for many, many years.
In Soviet Russia, nukes use you for power.
Specially since this is U-235 (the primary nuclear fuel currently in use on civilian nuclear power stations).
Using U-235 for nuclear weapons is only common in first generation nuclear programs. You see, enriching uranium is a PITA (separating isotopes), while separating plutonium from anything else is soooo much easier (chemical separation).
The trick is having a reactor that takes thatplentiful U-238 and hit it with a neutron to make Pu-239 (that nasty plutonium used in bombs). Plutonium isn't naturally occurring.
If there are still US nuclear weapons that use U-235, those must be the oldest in the inventory.
So, any association from that Russian nuclear fuel with nuclear bombs is only made by those without any nuclear physics knowledge.
U-238 is 99,3% of natural uranium. It's the stuff that enrichment removes from the base material (producing depleted uranium).
A holy grail of peaceful nuclear is breeding Pu-239 from U-238 on the fly inside the reactor and the fission it, but having this happen mixed with all kinds of nasty beta emitters that make using that Pu-239 for nuclear weapons another PITA. Beta radiation is the stuff that really kills (used to kill cancer cells in radiotheraphy), but inside the reactor it's not an issue.
Not to mention that everybody that has significant stockpiles of Pu-239 want to destroy most of it ! Most nuclear reactors can't deal with nuclear fuel with lots of plutonium.
your sig is intensive. please calm it down a bit
Well, sure. For a very, very short amount of time.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Should have used them to glass the US.
The US and Russia "beat swords into plowshares", and the first thing out of anyone's mouth was how evul da US is?
Incredible.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yes, apparently you wiretap the internet and install the video cameras.
Who, specifically, are the two of you referring to when you say "you" and "we"? All Americans? Really?
Yes sir, no Americans "just talk big" on the internet as they rave into video cameras, and all Americans support "wiretapping the internet" as we giggle our asses off installing the video cameras... and all Irish are drunks, all Brits have bad teeth and all Muslims are terrorists.
You really put your names on this shit? Both of your posts are sense-free trolls. Give it a rest.
heat swords into glow sticks
rewriting history since 2109
No wonder. A program to do this would never work. This is clearly a hardware problem.
So you are recycling russian nukes to build your own nukes! Thats smart ;)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
And we are thankful that the faculty at American universities are free to express "anti-American" sentiments -- aren't we?
U-238 and hit it with a neutron to make Pu-239
IANANuclear Engineer, but isn't it a proton that's needed for that?
</pedantic>
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Not saying all Americans support this, but it's done in your name by your government. Often against the laws of the country where it happens (which apparently are deemed irrelevant by your laws).
So, like it or not, these are things America is currently doing right now.
Sadly, my country is one of the Five Eyes, and I need to accept that Canada is doing this as well. I don't like it either, but that doesn't change that it's happening in my name or that I wish it wasn't.
But when someone says "ZOMG, teh Canajuns are doing teh spying (eh)" -- the best we can say is "yeah, we don't like it either".
Unfortunately, when our politicians act like douchebags, it reflects on us all. And, sadly, I suspect in many countries where this is occurring those of us who disagree with it are vastly outnumbered by the ones who think that it's OK.
But if you think that still doesn't create some negative backlash against a country in general, you're fooling yourself. If most of your country believes this is OK and what you should be doing, well, then on balance, the whole country bears the blame for it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Early enrichment had a pretty low energy return on energy invested because of the large contribution of gaseous diffusion to the process. Enriching up to weapons grade and then diluting back down was also an extra energy draw. I can't count the number of complaints I've heard about solar energy payback time from nuke nuts on slashdot, yet all this time its been horrible to non-existent for US nukes. Mostly we've had imported soviet hydro and coal power with this program.
Now Russia can do the same with all America's nukes! They won't mind!
Your ad here.
Apparently the irony is lost on Americans.
How exactly is the mindset of "the only people we trust with nukes is ourselves" ironic? Moronic perhaps, but hardly ironic.
...and they shall beat their swords into plowshares... That's what $14 Billion can buy.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
While some people complain about the geopolitical status of the United States, it has to remembered that the US emerged from isolationism outside the Western hemisphere only after the second World War. Sure there was some involvement after the Spanish-American war and the first World War, but current state of affairs was created by the actions of countries around the world. If there is anything especially exceptional about the United States, it is that it is a large political conglomerate that continuously assimilates immigrants.
Cooperation between nuclear powers can only benefit humanity as a whole. A system of friendly competition and cooperation between countries than the wanton destructiveness of general war.
Naw. I fully expected them to show up at the nearest fireworks stand. Loads of fun that's sure to blow you away.
Life is not for the lazy.
Any argument that relies on higher prices for uranium needs to account for the falling cost of renewable energy which does not need fuel. Already wind power is helping to shut down existing reactors as uneconomical so demand for nuclear power is very unlikely to support higher uranium prices.
The US is a leader because we don't just talk big on the internet and rave into video cameras.
Yes, once in a while we actually do something right. Buying the Uranium, which largely gave the substance a safe direction to travel, and a cash reward for compliance worked out well.
Although, in 1995 I was in Prague when the news carried a story about a car being discovered with 6 pounds of enriched Uranium scooting around town. I was pretty alarmed because the people were evidently looking for a buyer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
U238 + Neutron -> U239 -electron (beta decay) -> P239
U-238 captures a neutron, becoming U-239. This decays via beta decay, turns a neutron into a proton, to Neptunium Np-239, which decays again via beta decay to form the more stable Pu-239.
For more information see the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
So you admit that your government is doing exactly the same thing and even in exactly the same program as the American government. Funny, then, that you say that Americans are all about spying on everybody, however when it comes to Canada, all you have to say is "yeah, we don't like it either."
Unless you've been living under a rock, we (American citizens) aren't too happy about the thing as a whole. It doesn't mater which country it is that's behind it; whether our own or another.
Google is your friend, but for the lazy:
Right, the neutron capture makes U-239, then it undergoes two beta decays that add one proton to the nucleus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-238
I'm also not a physicist, but this explanation must the right, because it's the same in multiple sources (Wikipedia, nuclear lectures from multiple sources).
For explanation of why the double beta decay adds a proton to the nucleus, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_decay
U-238 and hit it with a neutron to make Pu-239
IANANuclear Engineer, but isn't it a proton that's needed for that?
</pedantic>
After U-238 absorbs a neutron it becomes U-239, which decays (half life = 23 m) to Np-239, which decays (half life = 2 d) again to Pu-239.
Maybe we can get them to toss our spent fuel into an unused building at Chernobyl.
Oops forgot to clarify, the decays are beta decay, where a neutron in the nucleus turns into a proton and ejects an electron and antineutrino.
Uhh ... only if you deliberately refuse to admit that this is recycling.
"I gave the pencil to him"
"I gave the pencil to he"
"I gave the book to she"
"I gave the book to her"
If you can pick out the correct ones above, why are you so dense that you can't pick between "who" and "whom"? I won't comment on "intensive", but "begs the question"? Really?
Trust has very little to do with it. The people who have these weapons have them. The best that can be hoped for is a process of disarmament that does not cause too much damage if trust is broken, and one which prevents other parties from gaining the weapons and thus becoming risk factors in and of themselves.
That said, this particular program was an ingenious way of proving that these weapons were destroyed. It put the most critical parts -what actually makes these things nuclear weapons- through a relatively open, transparent, and auditable process that rendered them, if not precisely inert, then at least unsuitable for use in weapons. Trades of this sort should be more common among countries decreasing their stockpiles.
Just wait; once we get the Slingatron built and working, we'll just toss all that garbage into the sun.
Er, well, towards it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I'm aware of that. But we're mostly arguing silly semantics of if we can say "the Americans are spying on everybody", or if we can say "the Americans (despite the objections of some Americans) are spying on everybody".
Functionally, there's no damned difference. You yell at your government, I'll yell at mine. You're free to complain about my government, and I'll continue to complain about yours.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And why do we feel the US is more trusted with this than anybody else?
Because we already have enough warheads to destroy the entire planet 100x over? How is a bit more Uranium going to help us? So we can destroy it 101x over?
Almost.
U238 + n -> U239 (neutron capture)
U239 -> Np239 + e (beta decay)
Np239 -> Pu239 + e (beta decay)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
the best we can say is "yeah, we don't like it either".
Unfortunately, when our politicians act like douchebags, it reflects on us all. And, sadly, I suspect in many countries where this is occurring those of us who disagree with it are vastly outnumbered by the ones who think that it's OK..
I don't think so. I have a feeling that those who don't like it do out number those who find such behavior appalling. The problem is, is that it doesn't seem there is any way to fix it within the framework any longer. The politicians/lawyers have warped and twisted the system to the point that it no longer serves "we the people" but the politicians themselves. I'm sure it probably always did to a point, but it's almost palpable now. Sadly we don't even have a good option for who to vote for any longer. Our last two presidents were voted into office on good wishes and little else. Bush was going to be reach across the aisle and work with both parties and focus on internal matters and avoid "nation building" and deficit reduction... Our current president was going to close Gitmo, cure global warming and give us unicorns and rainbows. My father has gotten to the point that he simply votes against whomever the incumbent is. If the incumbent is running unchallenged, he uses the write in.
I hope I'm wrong, but I fear we have crossed the line where things can be fixed in a peaceable manner. I don't think we've come to the point where it will take an all out revolt to fix things. But I do fear there may come a time where riots will start occurring. Or even worse, the American people have become so complacent and distracted, that all of the diversions will keep us placated indefinitely. Then we are truly lost.
Oops, just notice I forgot the antineutrinos.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
HEU is often used in second stages in most modern warheads. It's just dangerous to use as a pit.
Proton: positively charged .... ...
Neutron: neutral, hence the name
I leave the rest to your imagination.
(* facepalm *)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Trust has very little to do with it. The people who have these weapons have them. The best that can be hoped for is a process of disarmament that does not cause too much damage if trust is broken, and one which prevents other parties from gaining the weapons and thus becoming risk factors in and of themselves.
A general perspective from Sen. Sam Nunn. The world requires more progress. I think people have become too complacent about these weapons.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Concise and educational. Thank you.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
There's no danger of a fuel shortage. The new US centrifuge enrichment plant is up and running, and the second section of the plant is under construction.
If I'm reading the article right, that entire supply of fuel-grade uranium set us back a total of $17B. If we can produce 10% of our nation's power for 20 years (i.e. supply 2 years' worth of our country's TOTAL electricity needs) on half of what Apple brings in per quarter, why on earth are we bothering with wind farms and solar arrays?
Although, in 1995 I was in Prague when the news carried a story about a car being discovered with 6 pounds of enriched Uranium scooting around town. I was pretty alarmed because the people were evidently looking for a buyer.
Well, you know, the life of a repo man is always intense.
I believe the time has long since passed where nothing except peaceful means and working within the system will be effective in causing change in some countries.
Between the fact that they can monitor everything you do, use terrorism laws to detain you without trial, and have a huge imbalance in terms of force available to them -- the days a revolt being anything other than a suicide pact are long gone.
Any attempts at anything more drastic will only allow them to say "see, terrorists". Unfortunately, they seem quite unwilling to listen to protests and reasoned debate.
Ideally, opinion and policy swing back the other way and things get better. I, like you, fear they won't -- but hopefully countries start to realize you don't need to get as far down the path as needing an armed revolt to adhere to what were your starting principles.
One would like to hope that civil disobedience and less violent means are still viable. And maybe that's truly naive, but the alternative is terrifying: if Western democracies have to resort to armed insurrection, it's all pretty much downhill from there. Because every piss-pot dictator will say "but see, you do the same thing", and the world as we know it will have changed for the worse.
And, sadly, for a lot of people as long as their day to day lives are mostly the same, they're never going to understand why this is happening and not going to side with it. Ideally, you exhaust all other options before resorting to anything more drastic.
One would like to hope there's still some shreds of enlightenment and finding a better way available to us.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
whom the fuck ate my last twinkie
Yes, of course, like the USA is the only country with NSA/CIA like organizations right?
And why do we feel the US is more trusted with this than anybody else?
Because we already have enough warheads to destroy the entire planet 100x over? How is a bit more Uranium going to help us? So we can destroy it 101x over?
No, we really don't. Nuclear stockpiles are a fraction of 1% of their cold war peaks (I calculated it once, but don't remember the exact number). I believe our silo-based missiles in the U.S. are down to 150 single-warhead Minuteman IIIs, at around 300 kT each. That's about 450 MT, which is still a lot of destructive power, but the largest single device ever detonated was 50 MT all by itself, and was supposedly capable of being boosted to 100 MT.
And the OP entirely missed the point: This was not "giving" new nukes to the U.S. This was taking old nukes out of circulation and using them for energy. Using your analogy, this is going from 100x to 99x or lower, not the other way around.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Perhaps someone can please post another TSA article?
the us spent almost fifty years worried by the prospect of russian nukes lighting up their cities
The US has double the installed power of nuclear reactors compared to France or Japan, and more than 5x the capacity of the UK.
The UK and France already have reprocessing plants to convert weapons-grade plutonium into reactor fuel, which isn't yet done in the US, so I'm guessing they have even less need for uranium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Current_applications
Parent cites only WIKIPEDIA. Couldn't he bother citing something authoritative, something that isn't regularly contributed to by psych ward patients who have just enough cognitive skills to sometimes contribute?
Chernobyl is in Ukraine, not Russia. I think they might object.
My bad...
Beta decay doesn't add protons to the nucleus, it converts neutrons into protons+electron in this case happens twice:
U-238 + neutron = U-239
U-239 (beta decay) -> Np-239 (one more proton/electron, one less neutron)
Np-239 (beta decay) -> Pu-239 (one more proton/electron, one less neutron)
That's what happens when you pretend you try use chemistry knowledge 20 yrs after studying it (and not using).
Um. No, stockpiles are significantly higher than that:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nwhmt.html
Damn. We so need the "Woosh!" mod.
several reasons:
1) there ain't much left for sale. It was sold at a loss for political and military reasons (Russia didn't want her former satellites to have nukes right next door).
2) fracking has an uncertain future. We frack because our lords and masters want to - and while the outcome of that decision is economic, the reasons behind it are purely political and subject to change.
The people "bothering with" wind farms and solar arrays want to be independent of politically manipulable inputs. The Demolicans and Republicrats can't turn off the sun or stop the wind without killing us all. Some people like to plan ahead.
I have children, so I have flexible, robust long-range plans. Unsurprisingly these include food, water, energy and self-defense for both the short and the long run. If things get really bad, the people with plans will eat the people who don't have any; but cannibalism spreads disease so we'd rather things didn't ever get that bad. Hence, we try to encourage the rest of you to plan ahead too, and think about sustainability on a long term.
Not that you should give a damn about my opinion, but this post is as well thought out and on target as the first was knee-jerk.
What you have written above is the most realistic and insightful analysis that I have seen to date of our situation and options.
Specially since this is U-235 (the primary nuclear fuel currently in use on civilian nuclear power stations). Using U-235 for nuclear weapons is only common in first generation nuclear programs. You see, enriching uranium is a PITA (separating isotopes), while separating plutonium from anything else is soooo much easier (chemical separation).
Your notion is about 50 years out of date - this was a common idea in the 1950s. The perfection of the gas centrifuge, available since the early 1960s completely changed the equation.
Highly enriched uranium is much cheaper than plutonium gram for gram (the cost differential is more than 10:1). That "easy" chemical separation you speak of has to be done in a hot cell, and produces large amounts of highly radioactive waste, and requires first making uranium into fuel, then cooking it in an expensive reactor for months, and then more months of cooling. HEU these days simply takes slightly radioactive natural or low enriched uranium and sends it through a gas centrifuge cascade in a modest-sized warehouse giving you product easily converted to metal at the other end after several days later.
Highly enriched uranium (aka HEU, your "U-235") is widely used in modern thermonuclear weapons. The secondary casing is made out of it, the secondary spark plug is likely made out of it, and perhaps half of the total yield of warhead is when the highly enriched uranium is fissioned by the flood neutrons from the thermonuclear burn. There is roughly ten times more HEU in a modern weapon than plutonium, which is only used for the primary (where the fact that it has a lower critical mass is very important).
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
My girlfriend claims she can feel a difference when our electricity is being produced by Russian uranium.
"Do you have any idea what was happening in Russia after the USSR fell apart?"
Most Slashchan readers aren't that old, nor are they "nerdy" enough to care about ancient times.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Plutonium is naturally occurring. The problem is we find only trace amounts because its half life is relatively short.
"Plutonium is the heaviest primordial element by virtue of its most stable isotope, plutonium-244, whose half-life of about 80 million years is just long enough for the element to be found in trace quantities in nature.[3]"
It is a primordial element - meaning it was extant since before the Earth condensed and solidified.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Parent cites only WIKIPEDIA. Couldn't he bother citing something authoritative, something that isn't regularly contributed to by psych ward patients who have just enough cognitive skills to sometimes contribute?
Protip: Crazy psych ward patients don't know they're crazy.
Parent cites Wikepedia which lists the following citations:
Kurie, F. N. D.; Richardson, J. R.; Paxton, H. C. (1936). "The Radiations Emitted from Artificially Produced Radioactive Substances. I. The Upper Limits and Shapes of the -Ray Spectra from Several Elements". Physical Review 49 (5): 368–381. Bibcode:1936PhRv...49..368K. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.49.368.
Kurie, F. N. D. (1948). "On the Use of the Kurie Plot". Physical Review 73 (10): 1207. Bibcode:1948PhRv...73.1207K. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.73.1207.
Tuli, J. K. (2011). Nuclear Wallet Cards (8th ed.). Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Konya, J.; Nagy, N. M. (2012). Nuclear and Radiochemistry. Elsevier. p. 74-75. ISBN 978-0-12-391487-3.
Jung, M.; et al. (1992). "First observation of bound-state decay". Physical Review Letters 69 (15): 2164–2167. Bibcode:1992PhRvL..69.2164J. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.69.2164. PMID 10046415.
Bosch, F.; et al. (1996). "Observation of bound-state beta minus decay of fully ionized 187Re: 187Re–187Os Cosmochronometry". Physical Review Letters 77 (26): 5190–5193. Bibcode:1996PhRvL..77.5190B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.5190. PMID 10062738.
Nave, C. R. "Energy and Momentum Spectra for Beta Decay". HyperPhysics. Retrieved 2013-03-09.
Fermi, E. (1934). "Versuch einer Theorie der -Strahlen. I". Zeitschrift für Physik 88 (3–4): 161–177. Bibcode:1934ZPhy...88..161F. doi:10.1007/BF01351864.
Mott, N. F.; Massey, H. S. W. (1933). The Theory of Atomic Collisions. Clarendon Press. LCCN 34001940.
Venkataramaiah, P.; Gopala, K.; Basavaraju, A.; Suryanarayana, S. S.; Sanjeeviah, H. (1985). "A simple relation for the Fermi function". Journal of Physics G 11 (3): 359–364. Bibcode:1985JPhG...11..359V. doi:10.1088/0305-4616/11/3/014.
Jump up ^ Schenter, G. K.; Vogel, P. (1983). "A simple approximation of the fermi function in nuclear beta decay". Nuclear Science and Engineering 83 (3): 393–396. OSTI 5307377.
a b Segré, E. (1987). "K-Electron Capture by Nuclei". In Trower, P. W. Discovering Alvarez: Selected Works of Luis W. Alvarez. University of Chicago Press. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-0-226-81304-2.
"The Nobel Prize in Physics 1968: Luis Alvarez". The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
Alvarez, L. W. (1937). "Nuclear K Electron Capture". Physical Review 52 (2): 134–135. Bibcode:1937PhRv...52..134A. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.52.134.
Alvarez, L. W. (1938). "Electron Capture and Internal Conversion in Gallium 67". Physical Review 53 (7): 606. Bibcode:1938PhRv...53..606A. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.53.606.
Alvarez, L. W. (1938). "The Capture of Orbital Electrons by Nuclei". Physical Review 54 (7): 486–497. Bibcode:1938PhRv...54..486A. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.54.486.
Mcclain, D.E.; A.C. Miller, J.F. Kalinich (December 20, 2007). "Status of Health Concerns about Military Use of Depleted Uranium and Surrogate Metals in Armor-Penetrating Munitions" (pdf). NATO. Retrieved November 14, 2010.
Nuclear France: Materials and sites. "Uranium from reprocessing".
Facts from Cohen. Formal.stanford.edu (2007-01-26). Retrieved on 2010-10-24.
Advanced Nuclear Power Reactors | G
But his point was that the COST of these programs, "liked" or not by the population, WILL BE PAID by that population. It's their responsibility ultimately.
It reflects on the USA and their people, if a war started as a result of our govt policies it would be the blood of the people to pay for it.
It wasn't "all Americans support spying and abuses", it was "America as a country IS DOING THIS."
...it was never used in the first place.
Not if you lobby for their EU membership.
Yes, I know. Silo-based missiles are only one of three prongs of U.S. nuclear capabilities (I said we have 450 MT in silos. Your graph shows about 2,000 total, which seems about right). Your graph actually makes my point, though it seems I was off saying less than one percent. According to your graph, our current stockpile is a few percent (maybe as high as 10%---As I said, it's been a while since I looked at actual numbers, and I'm not above correction) of our peak stockpile. But the larger point stands: we have only a fraction of our peak capability.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
And how can you trust what the US claims as far as the US destroying there weapons? Or for that matter Russia's claims on what they may or may not have? I can promise you with all the spying networks in the US and the number of unknown newer weapons, the US still has more stock then they claim to have destroyed.
And yet other countries that the US claims to trust are allowed to have stock piles as well. But no one else is allowed..