Plutonium, the contest

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ^ | May/June 2001 (Contest ongoing) | Linda Rothstein

[ignatz_q]

PLUTONIUM, the Contest | The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

May/June 2001 Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 28-29
	PLUTONIUM, the Contest by Linda Rothstein Sometimes when you try to correct a problem, you end up digging yourself into a deeper hole. When trying to decide how to get rid of the "excess" plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons, that hole is literal as well as figurative. This plutonium, once thought to be enormously valuable, is sought after now only by bad actors who would like to build their own stock of nuclear weapons, which makes the secure disposal of excess material essential. Plutonium was long believed to be valuable because it cost so much to make. The government's figures are classified, but producing the U.S. stockpile of this toxic and radioactive silvery material with the little "criticality" problem--as its propensity to initiate a chain reaction is euphemistically known--certainly cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars. With a little bit of luck, we may be able to get rid of the now-declared-excess amount for a few dollars less. Right now the United States is considering two ways to dispose of 34 metric tons of the stuff. The first plan involves mixing it with uranium to produce mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel that could be burned in a few specially modified civilian power reactors. For safety reasons, plutonium can make up only about 5 percent of the MOX fuel, so it could take 20 to 50 years to dispose of the plutonium using this method. It would also cost perhaps $20 billion. And this figure omits two other likely expenses: first, the cost of a tricky PR campaign to persuade the public that it's their patriotic duty to allow plutonium from nuclear weapons to be burned in their local power reactors; and second, a slush fund to cover the bonuses and/or bribes paid to electric utilities to convince them to take fuel that will cost several times as much as uranium-only fuel. The spent fuel would eventually be buried in the ground. The second plan involves mixing plutonium with noxious chemical and radioactive wastes (to deter retrieval and re-use) and fusing or vitrifying it into a solid glass matrix before burying it in the ground. This would also cost billions and might take even longer--especially since the new administration's proposed Energy Department budget eliminates the plutonium vitrification program. But the question of plutonium disposal is a hot issue (pardon the pun) that will not go away. In addition to the U.S. pile of excess weapons plutonium, there is an equivalent Russian pile, and an additional 200-metric-tons-and-growing international mountain of "civil" plutonium--a legacy of expensive and ill-considered decisions by European and Japanese governments to reprocess spent fuel from their civilian power reactors. (Jimmy Carter, nuclear engineer, may have been an unloved president, but at least he led the United States away from that particular morass.) People have often asked if there isn't some other way to get rid of the stuff.* Recently, several non-governmental organizations have pointed out (using realistic numbers) that it would be cheaper for the United States to buy out and bury Russia's excess plutonium rather than giving Russia money--as it now plans to do--to build a MOX factory, rejigger a power plant or two, and spend the next two decades burning MOX fuel. And all the while, Russia would continue to produce more plutonium. Elsewhere in this issue, a "third way" is discussed--a plan to produce something called "storage MOX," which would resemble MOX fuel, except that it would contain more plutonium per fuel rod than could be used in a reactor. Storage MOX would be manufactured like regular fuel. Then it would be immediately stored in giant casks surrounded by spent fuel rods and lethally radioactive wastes, after which it would be buried in the ground. This plan would provide at least a decade of work for the plutonium reprocessing companies in Britain and France, whose continued existence depends on government support and who would otherwise lobby to continue producing more plutonium. The worst of all possible worlds--in other words, the most likely outcome--is that some plutonium will be buried, or burned and then buried, at great expense. Meanwhile, the reprocessing companies will continue to produce more (along with the enormous quantities of radioactive wastes that are a byproduct of reprocessing). Out of hiding If the public had paid attention to the plutonium problem, would it have come to this? And if given the opportunity, would the public vote for any of the proposed solutions? Admittedly, each has the same advantage/disadvantage: In the end, the plutonium will be buried deep in the ground, far away from us--somewhere that will let us forget any lessons we might otherwise have learned. Yet inescapably, the solutions are not only cumbersome, expensive, and painfully slow, they are also old-fashioned--so twentieth century, as they say. Each involves mysterious and expensive processes to be conducted in enormous and largely secret facilities, with the end products stored in giant, super-sealed containers, hidden away in the deepest, most inaccessible underground caverns tunneled out of the most remote corners of our countries. Does this remind anyone, just a bit, perhaps, of the Cold War approach to nuclear materials? Yet we are living in a new era--one that supposedly features transparency and the global dissemination of information. Why follow a Cold War paradigm? Why not opt for twenty-first century openness? We could put all the excess plutonium in a single giant marble palace--one that was esthetically pleasing, of course, yet designed to separate the plutonium into small aliquots to avoid criticality. It could be built near a major world city, preferably on or near a multinational border. Okay, maybe marble isn't such a great idea. But it would have to be big. At 16 grams to the cubic centimeter, 100 tons of plutonium would take up only about 6.25 cubic meters (think of a rectangle roughly 7 feet wide and 7 feet long, and 5 feet high), but each small quantity--maybe 25,000 of them--would need to be carefully separated from the rest by empty space and careful shielding to avoid unfortunate "reactions." Someone must think putting all that stuff in one building could be safe: The United States and Russia are together paying for an enormous building at the admittedly remote Mayak facility in Russia, where 50,000 separate containers of weapons materials will be stored. Perhaps a plutonium mausoleum might be powered by the heat of decay. It wouldn't produce much power, but what it did produce would last forever or 24,000 years-- whichever came first. We'd always know where the stuff was, and we could go and stare at it any time we wanted. A hundred security cameras (why not a thousand?) could broadcast live on the Internet from every nook and cranny. And the safety and security of the plutonium could be monitored 24/7 by net-surfing high school students in Mali and bored British housewives as well as by U.S. and Russian bureaucrats. We wouldn't have to worry about the human tendency to forget about burial grounds after a couple of centuries. We'd always know where the plutonium was--and if there was a problem, we'd probably be inclined to deal with it in a timely manner. We could call the structure the "Plutonium Memorial," and maybe its name could be emblazoned on giant neon signs in all the Big-Five U.N. languages, which might draw visiting families eager to take their children on tours--not to exceed, say, 14 minutes in length--as a demonstration of one of the true object lessons of the nuclear age. Linda Rothstein is editor of the Bulletin. *David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, the authors of World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium, 1992, list two other ways to get rid of plutonium that failed to capture the imagination: dispatching it in rockets aimed at the sun, and embedding it in underground rock formations, using nuclear blasts as an explosive fabrication technique. Deep sea-bed disposal has also been suggested. So here's the deal The idea of the "Plutonium Memorial" may not be any more realistic than flying pigs, universal peace, or a leak-proof missile shield. But just because it's not going to happen doesn't mean that the best and brightest artists and architects shouldn't be idling away their time designing the building. Accordingly, we at the Bulletin are pleased to announce a contest for the best picture, painting, model, or design plan for a plutonium mausoleumÑa representation that captures the spirit of the idea, but with serious accommodations for the safety and security requirements such a structure would have. (See www.thebulletin.org/contest for more about those requirements.) The creator(s) of the winning entry will receive $1,500, with $750 going to the second and third place finishers. In addition, the designers of the top 12 entries will receive a one-year subscription to the Bulletin, and a memento (e.g., T-shirt, mug) bearing the Bulletin logo, along with our undying gratitude and some modicum of publicity. Entries must be postmarked by November 30, 2001, and received at the Bulletin offices at 6042 South Kimbark, Chicago, Illinois 60637-2806. Electronic submissions cannot be accepted. Winners will be announced in the March/April 2002 issue of the magazine. All entries will become the property of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and cannot be returned. Complete contest rules are available on the Bulletin web site at www.thebulletin.org/contest.
	©2001 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

[ignatz_q]

Fascinating. I wonder what kind of entries some of the more scientifically minded FReepers could come up with.

[wildandcrazyrussian]

1) Pay Russia to shoot it into the Sun, which has lots of radioactive materials already.

2) Pay NASA to send it on a Mars mission and it'll be sure to disappear.

[OBAFGKM]

Having freshly reread Keynes, I recommend minting it into coins. Plutonium money would encourage people to spend rather than letting it lie idle in their pockets. Plutonium's small critical mass would also discourage disproportionate accumulation of fortunes, thereby assuring a more equitable distribution of wealth.

[Mr. Vega]

Make a big bomb and blow up the moon!

[chimera]

...but each small quantity--maybe 25,000 of them--would need to be carefully separated from the rest by empty space and careful shielding to avoid unfortunate "reactions."

Geez, the Bulletin must be scraping the bottom of the barrel for "editors" these days. Anyone with any technical knowledge of criticality safety will know that there are many ways so assure safe geometry, not just the pitch of the fissile materials and the intralattice absorbers. A little boral will do wonders...

[ignatz_q]

Wouldn't boral count as "shielding"? I think her statement is technically correct.

[ignatz_q]

Love it! I hope you submit that one...

[chimera]

The article has the connector "and" between "empty space" and "shielding". Taken together both will work, but are not strictly necessary. You can have relatively thin but effective shielding and have very close spacing of the fissile materials and still be safe from a criticality accident.

Here is a case in point. Not 20 feet from where I am sitting now is an underwater storage pit containing enriched uranium fuel assemblies. It has more than a critical mass of fissile material in it at the present time. It is a very small facility, about 30 inches deep, 12" in width and about 36" long. It is filled with light water. It is not now nor will it ever be a critical assembly. Why? Because the baffles are made of boral. It has an effective multiplication factor of about 0.28, verified computationally as well as by measurements.

IOW, the tone of this article made it sound like plutonium is a boogeyman. Well, guess what? It didn't scare me. Why? Because I understand science. Just like when kids grow up and aren't afraid of the dark anymore, one can overcome irrational fears with a little understanding.

[ignatz_q]

I see your point. To be fair, the materials on the site related to plutonium handling seem relatively accurate. I would recommend writing them if you see errors, though.

Sounds like you've already given the issues some thought... maybe you should submit an entry.

[ignatz_q]

Actually, I was just reviewing the specs again, and they seem to echo your opinion that plutonium is *not* the boogeyman it is sometimes made out to be. Posted here for everyone's wonky pleasure:

The care and handling of plutonium, a primer...

Below we've described in brief detail some of the peculiarities associated with handling and storing plutonium. But two main things to keep in mind when designing your Plutonium Memorial are:

• Plutonium needs to be stored in small quantities (not less than 200 grams or more than 10 kilograms) that are kept separate from each other. This prevents spontaneous combustion and nuclear chain reactions.
• Plutonium needs to be kept in air-tight containers to prevent inhalation or contact with the environment.

THE DETAILS:

At first blush, the idea of designing a "Plutonium Memorial" that could safely store large quantities of the stuff for thousands of years might seem overwhelming. After all, isn't plutonium "the most dangerous substance known to man"? Well, not exactly. In fact, there are several substances that arguably pose a much greater risk to human health--for example, cyanide, mercury, cesium, and strontium. Nonetheless, plutonium can be extremely dangerous if not handled carefully. Here are some things to keep in mind when designing your memorial:

1) Plutonium has several isotopes, some less dangerous than others. We are primarily concerned with weapons-grade plutonium, which contains a high percentage of plutonium 239, a fissile material with a half-life of 24,110 years. Virtually non-existent in nature, plutonium 239 is a byproduct of the production of nuclear energy in reactors. It is separated from other radioactive materials to make pits for nuclear weapons and for use in specially designed nuclear reactors. Currently, approximately 270 tons of weapons-usable plutonium are stockpiled in various forms in several countries. These stockpiles continue to increase, so memorial designs should leave room for growth. (See "Plutonium Disposal, The Third Way" by Allison Macfarlane et al. in the May/June 2001 Bulletin.)

2) Plutonium is pyrophoric--that is, in some forms and under certain conditions it has the nasty tendency to spontaneously ignite when exposed to air. Workers at the Rocky Flats weapons plant near Denver, where plutonium was shaped into pits for nuclear weapons, were intimately aware of this problem. According to former Bulletin editor Len Ackland, between 1966 and 1969 the plant suffered 31 plutonium fires. (Putting out plutonium fires is also a risky business because water can cause plutonium to explode.) In particular, small chips and tailings of plutonium are susceptible to combustion--but quantities of more than 200 grams aren't. (See "The Day They Almost Lost Denver" by Len Ackland in the July/August 1999 Bulletin.)

3) While very small amounts of plutonium have the tendency to ignite, larger masses--10 kilograms (about the size of a softball) or more--have a "criticality" problem. This means that the material fissions in a chain reaction, resulting in the release of large amounts of radiation. One of the first casualties of a plutonium criticality accident was Louis Slotin, a physicist who worked at Los Alamos laboratory. In May 1946, Slotin and other scientists were undertaking an experiment known as "tickling the dragon's tail," which involved bringing two hemispheres of beryllium-coated plutonium close enough together to initiate a fission reaction. The trick was to do this without allowing the two spheres to touch. In this instance, however, the spheres touched, and Slotin, who tried to separate them, immediately received a fatal dose of neutron radiation.

4) To avoid criticality accidents, subcritical quantities should be stored in containers that are placed at safe distances from each other. For more details, see Frank von Hippel's brief description of Russia's storage plans at the Mayak plutonium production facility.

5) When exposed plutonium isn't busy burning, it is undergoing oxidation, which converts it to plutonium dioxide--a particulate form that can easily be inhaled. Although the alpha radiation emitted by plutonium can't penetrate skin, it can cause severe damage to internal organs. When plutonium is inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs, potentially resulting in lung cancer and other pulmonary disorders. Some scientists, however, have gone to great lengths to disprove the dangers of plutonium, even going so far as to inhale or inject themselves with less dangerous isotopes of the material. In 1998, British scientist Eric Voice, who calls himself "the most radioactive man on the planet," inhaled small amounts of two plutonium isotopes. In an interview with the Birmingham Post nearly a year later, Voice claimed, "There is no evidence that any human on earth has ever suffered in health from plutonium and I have no adverse effects." The Bulletin does not advise prospective entrants to undertake similar experiments.

6) Although the dangers of plutonium are often exaggerated, the fact is nobody (except, perhaps, our friend Dr. Voice) likes the stuff. Finding an appropriate--and politically palatable--location for your memorial may prove difficult. There are two things, however, that you should consider: 1) In keeping with the spirit of this contest, we feel that the memorial should be in a highly visible location, a place open for the world to see--not some deep, dark tunnel in the middle of the desert that will only enable our forgetfulness (and possibly allow underground aquifers to be contaminated). (See "Getting Yucca Mountain Right" by Luther J. Carter and Thomas H. Pigford in the March/April 1998 Bulletin.) 2) Although those involved in the nuclear waste business have had some success locating waste facilities in places where the local population lacks political clout, it would be nice if at least some of those responsible for the world's mountain of plutonium could readily appreciate your ingenious plutonium resting place. Red Square, the National Mall in Washington D.C., and Kensington Gardens are probably out of the question. But you might consider siting your masterpiece in an imaginative place. Oh, and don't forget Mother Nature: Fault lines, volcanoes, and places frequently hit by tornadoes, hurricanes, avalanches, or tidal waves should be avoided.

7) Last but not least, plutonium can be used to make nuclear bombs. Although making a weapon from plutonium is not easy, it is in the world's best interest that knaves and scoundrels--and countries that support knaves and scoundrels--don't get their hands on the stuff. Successful memorial designs will include elaborate monitoring schemes that ensure the plutonium is under close watch at all times. You might want to consider metal detectors, infrared night-vision scopes, low-light web cams, ground motion sensors, magnetic footfall detectors, infrared body sensors, face recognition technologies, and high-resolution satellite imagery. Or perhaps an elite guard of professional soldiers under U.N. command.

For more detailed information on the peculiarities of plutonium, check out the plutonium links page.

OTHER CONTEST LINKS

• Contest rules page
  
• The experts page: Arguments and comments from the pros
• Contest description from the May/June issue (PDF)
• Entry forms: HTML version; PDF version

CONTACT INFORMATION
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Plutonium Memorial Contest
6042 South Kimbark Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60637
Fax: 773-702-0725
E-mail: contest@thebulletin.org

[Oleg Panczenko]

Using plutonium for power production is the best and most sensible use for it. The value of the power produced would go a long way towards amortizing the cost of the Cold War.

That we must now listen to idiot suggestions is a consequence of the massive decades-long campaign of disinformation against plutonium by anti-nuke groups.

[ignatz_q]

Hmm... I think you might want to reread the piece. There's far too much of it to filter all of it (or even most of it) into the nuclear power infrastructure. Most reactors don't run on weapons-grade plutonium, and those that use plutonium enriched uranium don't require that much.

Of course, once fuel is used in reactors, we actually end up with waste that may be even more difficult to deal with than the plutonium.

[chimera]

You're right, there is a tremendous amount of disinformation out there. The Luddites and their accomplices in the lamestream press have really drilled it into the vacuous minds of the sheeple that plutonium is "the most dangerous substance known to man". Bosh! Sure, its tricky stuff, and must be handled by trained personnel. But there are more dangerous and abundant things around that nobody ever talks about.

I was in a public debate once with a Luddite kook who kept going on and on as to how a pound of plutonium was toxic enough to kill everyone in the country. My counter to that was to ask if he or anyone else knew that in a single ejaculation of an average male there are enough viable sperm to impregnate the entire population of fertile females in the country. The problem with that, as with the plutonium-population toxicity issue, is one of distribution.

The reaction of Luddites to scorn is both amusing and enlightening.

[boris]

" Love it! I hope you submit that one..."

The idea is not original. I doubt it was Keynes. My faulty memory comes up with either Heinlein or Asimov.

--Boris

[chimera]

Of course, once fuel is used in reactors, we actually end up with waste that may be even more difficult to deal with than the plutonium.

It depends on your point of view. If the goal is to reduce worldwide stocks of weapons-usable material, then you may be better off dealing with fission products than with fissile material. Fission products do not make good weapons materials, except perhaps in a radiological dispersion device. But, they are not fissile, so by burning up the plut you've at least made a step towards reducing wordwide inventory.

But, this whole issue is kind of silly anyway. From an energy production and resource conservation point of view, plutonium fuels produced by breeders and commercial reprocessing is the best way to go. Proliferation risks are greatly reduced if you use a concept like the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) they were working on at INEL. But, Clinton killed that because it was too promising.

[tom paine 2]

My instructors in Nuclear power school in Bainbridge Maryland compared nuclear contamination to getting dog crap on your shoes. once you step in it it is very hard to get rid of. But hey we now know that we've got the energy crisis solved. Just build some more nukes.

[steve in DC]

Holy smokes!

Are you MAD?

If we blow up the moon, WHAT will regulate the ovulation periodicity in the female population? It could be "that time of the month" ALL month!

Please try to be a bit more thoughtful.

[Logophile]

What's wrong with "burning" the plutonium in a reactor to produce electricity?

I once toured the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. As I recall, the IFR was a sodium-cooled breeder reactor that was designed to shut down safely and automatically in the event of a coolant loss. Part of the IFR system was an electrorefining process that recovered uranium and plutonium for reuse. There were plans in the works for using the IFR to burn weapons-grade plutonium.

Unfortunately, the Clintonistas (especially Al Gore) were against the reuse of plutonium. The last I heard, they had ordered the IFR shut down and dismantled.

[Logophile]

Oops! I see that you already mentioned the IFR.

Is it true that the IFR has been dismantled? Or could it be reactivated?

[chimera]

See my post #15 re: IFR. I am an IFR advocate.