Atomic Insights Dec 96/Jan 97

As a scientist whose career includes the management of a plutonium laboratory, I am keenly aware of the many attributes of plutonium. Over the years I have also learned that advice from nuclear critics about plutonium is consistently unreliable. The critics are again offering unreliable information to the Secretary of Energy about the disposition of 50 tons of plutonium from the weapons programs.

The energy contained in 50 tons of Pu is equivalent to that contained in several hundred million barrels of oil. Based on this alone, it would be unwise national energy policy to not extract the useful energy from an otherwise “waste” material. This is not a waste material to be buried. Additionally, the environmental impacts of this fissioning process are vastly superior to those of the fossil fuel and “alternative energy” options.

The proliferation issue is an old issue, but a non-issue. There are nearly 30 nations now who have nuclear technology. Many are advanced beyond those of the United States. Others such as mainland China are unknown but presumed to be advanced, too. Many of these foreign experts have been educated in the U.S. Plutonium is or can be made available to these experts from existing production reactors such as the RBMKs now in Russia and those in China. So can the weapons designs themselves. To the critics I say, get over it. It’s out there. In fact, over the years the critics have helped publicize plutonium inventories and weapons design information.

Fissioning of this excess material irreversibly destroys the plutonium, in sharp contrast to vitrification of the material. Vitrification does not destroy the Pu, it only changes its chemical form to a glass matrix. Only money and glass chemistry is needed to extract the Pu for future uses.

The other nations know this too. Thus, vitrification of the Pu is an empty promise to the rest of the world. The rather easy process of fissioning the weapons material in existing reactors, is the only promise to the rest of the world which provides complete destruction of the material. That is a promise of which we can all be proud.

Mike Fox has 30 years of experience in the nuclear waste industry. He holds a B.S. in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (1965 University of Washington). He has expertise in nuclear waste management, plutonium research, geologic disposal, health effects of radiation, energy supply and demand, environmental regulations, and science communications. He recently retired from the United States Department of Energy after 30 years of service.

In a press release carefully coordinated with mass internet mailings to all the old anti-technology political action groups, Nader’s well-funded Critical Mass organization tries to create the impression of “a growing coalition of national, international and grassroots groups” joined by “many scientists, experts and the public.” But there is nothing spontaneous or grass-rootsy about this well-orchestrated PR blitz to prevent plutonium and uranium from dismantled weapons being used to generate electricity for the public. Ironically, Nader’s position is silently applauded by the big oil and coal companies. This weapons material constitutes a unique energy resource, equivalent to $30 billion in oil. How can we call it a waste? If it were oil, we would be ready to sacrifice a generation of our ablest youth to keep it. But Nader and friends want us to destroy it. They regret that only the United States has opted to avoid using plutonium for peaceful purposes, which was an unfortunate decision by President Carter, made in the vain hope that other nations would follow us. Of course, they did not.

Pundits tell us that energy is our most precious asset; that we must conserve it and constrict all our goals and plans to meet a dwindling energy supply. We are told to recycle and reuse everything else, but this special asset we are to throw away. Here, in a unique historical situation, we suddenly find ourselves with a limitless, proven, completely non-polluting energy source. Nuclear power produces no air pollution, no global warming gases, no acid rain, and its solid wastes are so small in volume that they can be canned, accounted for, and responsibly stored – an impossibility with any other power source. Those who claim to speak for the environment should welcome any steps that reduce the environmental degradation resulting from all other forms of energy generation.

Thousands of people are dying of food poisoning (which could be prevented by irradiating the food in a process proven over 40 years); thousands more are dying of air pollution from coal-burning power plants; global warming from burning fuels threatens the whole race; water sources are drying up (with oceans needing only energy to make their water potable). These are real problems. How can anyone choose not to use plutonium, which has never killed anyone (except as a bomb at Nagasaki), to solve these problems? The surest way to keep it from terrorists is to buy it at the present bargain price being offered, and start consuming it in power plants.

Theodore Rockwell was Technical Director of Naval Reactors (U.S. Atomic Energy Commission), editor of The Reactor Shielding Design Manual, co-author of The Shippingport Pressurized Water Reactor, and of Arms Control Agreements: Designs for Verification, and author of The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference and Power to the People: The Many Faces of Nuclear Technology (in preparation).