23 November 1995 -- A German court sentenced Adolph Jaekle, a German businessman, to 51/2 years in prison for smuggling weapons grade plutonium into the country, according to press reports. Investigators made the first in a series of contraband plutonium seizures in Germany when they raided Jaekle's home, in the southern town of Tengen in May, 1994, and found a lead cylinder containing 6.15 grams of plutonium 239. Jaekle had pleaded not guilty to the plutonium charge, arguing that he did not know what the substance was. (From the Washington Post, November 24, 1995.)
The Union of Concerned Scientists today issued a press release condemning the decision in Congress to fund the possible reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, Included in the FY 06 Energy and Water Appropriations bill is $50 million for DOE to build a demonstration reprocessing plant, with the hopes of bringing one online by 2010.
From the UCS press release:
If the U.S. were to reprocess the roughly 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel that it has generated to date, it would produce about 500 metric tons of separated plutonium, enough for tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and an attractive target for terrorists.
With Yucca Mountain in doubt, reprocessing seems reasonable -- unless you're worried about people like Jaekle, above. Reprocessing creates plustonium, and plutonium, as John McPhee noted in his book from the 1970s, The Curve of Binding Energy, has a way of disappearing in small amounts. And small amounts can cause a lot of trouble. And apparently a lot of plutonium has already gone missing -- if only "on paper."
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A little pinch of plutonium
Ihr Bericht entspricht nur der halben Wahrheit.
Jaekle
Posted on November 17, 2005 10:11 PM by Jaekle
Funny. Which is the wrong half?
Posted on November 17, 2005 11:11 PM by Judith Lewis
Judith:
Though most existing, large scale reprocessing efforts use a process (known as PUREX) that was derived from weapons programs and thus does result in the production of separated plutonium, that technology is old, inefficient, and would not likely be used for any new recycling plants.
There have been a number of newer processes developed over the years - one that I have some knowledge about is called pyroprocessing - that never separate plutonium from the other heavy metals - uranium, americium and other minor actinides - that are in the leftovers from the first pass in a power reactor.
All of those heavy metals are useful as reactor fuels, but because of a number of properties they do not make very good bomb material.
It seems to me that it is only prudent and environmentally sound to recycle the valuable material that is sometimes now considered to be waste material - there is an incredible quantity of energy stored in the 50-60,000 metric tons of fuel rods that have been removed from reactors - less than 5% of the potential energy has been used.
Reduce, reuse, recycle - good thoughts for paper, plastics, steel, and heavy metals.
Posted on November 21, 2005 1:11 AM by Rod Adams
Good to know, Rod. Thanks. I've only heard about the current technology; I'll have to read up on the new plans.
Do you know anything about the environmental consequences of reprocessing plants? Some people say it can't be done without dumping tons of toxic effluent into the oceans and rivers. Is that the old technology, too?
Posted on November 21, 2005 4:11 PM by Judith Lewis