Slashdot Mirror
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."
And why do we feel the US is more trusted with this than anybody else?
Oh, right, you guys continue to believe you are the leaders of the free world, and the champions of freedom and liberty.
Apparently the irony is lost on Americans.
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
first
learn it, live it, love it
All your warheads are belonging to us.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
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...
In Soviet Russia, nukes use you for power.
Should have used them to glass the US.
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.
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.
...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.
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.
Uhh ... only if you deliberately refuse to admit that this is recycling.
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?
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?
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?
the us spent almost fifty years worried by the prospect of russian nukes lighting up their cities
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?
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.
My girlfriend claims she can feel a difference when our electricity is being produced by Russian uranium.
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
...it was never used in the first place.