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New Production of Plutonium 238

Posted by timothy on Mon Jun 27, 2005 02:00 PM
from the getting-warm-in-here dept.
United States Science
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "According to the New York Times (login req, but you can google for it as well), the Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 since the cold war. Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory. Officials denied that any of the classified missions would involve nuclear arms, satellites or weapons in space, but rather would power 'secret espionage devices.' Plutonium 238 has no central role in nuclear arms. Instead, it is valued for its steady heat, which can be turned into electricity. Nuclear batteries made of it are best known for powering spacecraft that go where sunlight is too dim to energize solar cells. For instance, they now power the Cassini probe exploring Saturn and its moons."
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[+] NASA Running Out of Plutonium 264 comments
PRB_Ohio takes us to Space.com for a story about NASA's plutonium shortage, and how it may affect future missions to the far reaches of the solar system. The U.S. hasn't produced plutonium since 1988, instead preferring to purchase it from Russia. We discussed the U.S. government's plans to resume production in 2005, but those plans ended up being shelved. If NASA is unable to find an additional source, it could limit missions that take spacecraft too far from the Sun. Quoting: "Alan Stern, NASA associate administrator for science, ... said he believed the United States had sufficient plutonium-238 on hand or on order to fuel next year's Mars Science Lab, an outer planets flagship mission targeted for 2017 and a Discovery-class mission slated to fly a couple years earlier to test a more efficient radioisotope power system NASA and the Energy Department have in development. To help ensure there is enough plutonium-238 for those missions, NASA notified scientists in January that its next New Frontiers solicitation, due out in June, will seek only missions that do not require a nuclear power source."
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  • http://bugmenot.com/ [bugmenot.com] useful website people always neglect to mention for logins to websites like nytimes.com :(
  • I, for one, welcome our secret espionage device overlord. 330lbs of Pu must make one hell of a secret espionage device. Maybe they're got an SEP field set up?

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Informative)

      by cheezedawg (413482)
      330lbs sounds like a lot, but its probably about the size of a 12 pack of coke.
      • Actually, it would be a cube 20cm on a side.

        I think...checking:

        330lbs = 149,685 grams. 149,685 grams at 19.84 grams / cm^3 is about 7545 cm^3. The third root of 7545 is 19.6.

        Can that be right? Wow. I knew it was dense stuff, but holy sh*t!
          • Seems to me that the physical size of the core has pretty much nothing to do with it. If it can reach critical mass, particularly when surrounded by appropriate materials (beryllium reflector, u-235 shell, etc), then it can...whether it's the size of a basketball...or a golf ball.

            The smallest warhead made ("Davy Crockett") was a shoulder-launched, tactical size unit whose business end was the size of a cantaloupe.
    • I just hope noone steals their Plutonium 238 Explosive Space Modulator(*). There could be an Earth-shattering kaboom as a result.

      * Note: Yes, I know, it was originally an Illudium Q-36 model, but that was a long time ago; things change.
    • 330lbs of Pu must make one hell of a secret espionage device.

      My guess would be that this is going to fuel thousands of small unattended ground sensors, not big devices. Because the are unattended, they need steady fuel for a long period of time, and because they are transmitting data (perhaps in an ad-hoc swarm manner), they will need need a moderate amount of energy.

      So the correct slashdot cliche here is - in Soviet Russia a beowolf cluster of secrete espionage devices welcome you!

  • Spacecraft RTGs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by justanyone (308934) on Monday June 27 2005, @02:14PM (#12923485) Homepage Journal
    Sounds like this is used to power Radioisotope Thermal Generators. this is a very good thing; we need more experience with RTGs to power spacecraft, both nearby (spy satellites) and far (science missions). It's the only power we can generate when we're beyond Mars orbit (solar cells are much less effective the farther you get from the Sun.

    My wife brought up the pollution aspect - not from polluting outer space (I explained already about the fact that space is far more radioactive than the plutonium is, we're not 'polluting' space). Rather, the Hanford (Washington State USA) processing facility created / processed lots of plutonium during the cold war and ended up creating massive environmental damage with radionucleides in the groundwater, soil, etc.

    Where exactly is this processing plant and is the DOD allowing the EPA to supervise environmental maintenance/protection?

    (Note: I don't care where it is; if telling me hurts security that's fine I don't need to know, but I don't want this kind of a plant showing up next door to me without someone having filed an environmental impact statement).
    • From TFA "The Idaho National Laboratory, founded in 1949 for atomic research, stretches across 890 square miles of southeastern Idaho... The site is dotted with 450 buildings and 52 reactors... New plutonium facilities there would take five years to build and cost about $250 million."
    • IYRTAYK, if you read the article you'd know or even just made an assumption from the summany. Idaho, is of course the location of the Idaho National Laboratory (go figure), which is near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Looks like they'll run into a lot of local opposition to the plan, but personally I hope it passes. They dutifully elect Republicans, now, let them deal with some (more) long term environmental damage.
    • On the second page of the article gives this relevant fact:

      Today, the United States doesn't make plutonium 238 and instead relies on aging stockpiles or imports from Russia. By agreement with the Russians, it cannot use the imported material -- some 35 pounds since the end of the Cold War -- for military purposes.

      So what it sounds like is the goverment needs the plutonium for military applications, not for NASA since they can already get Pu-238 from Russia for NASA missions.

    • This is NOT good news. In fact, I think it sucks. Let me be perfectly clear, I think we need Pu238 and the RTGs it's used in for space missions that travel beyond the area close enough to the sun for solar cells to be useful. The Cassini mission to Saturn is the prime example of this, the amount of incredibly fantastic science being done by that mission is impossible without RTGs. There is a small risk of Pu dispersal if the probe explodes on launch, but after that these things are looong gone and pose no e
        • You are mistaken. If you had read the full environmental impact statement [nasa.gov] for Cassini you'd know that a significant portion of the RTG heater units were expected to burn up and disperse on re-entry should that've occured. These things are not indestructable. A fast flying shard of metal during an on pad explosion could easily slice right through an RTG.
            • Uh yeah thanks but I think I just MIGHT [wikipedia.org] know what I'm talking about here. The RTG heater units (NOT the 1 watt RHUs) are called GPHS modules (general purpose heat sources). Read this chapter [nasa.gov]!! The probabilities of RTG breakup and dispersal in the atmosphere are calculated for you, you don't even have to think. THE PROBABILITY IS NON ZERO! I can't make this any clearer.
                • So you claim to have a degree in probability theory yet cannot seem to tell the difference between zero and finite risk. wow. nice. you must've graduated at the head of the class.
  • Nuclear power really won't take you very far unless you use breeder reactors. About 40 years by some estimates.

    By using breeder reactors, we can have up to 40,000 years of energy.

    Breeder reactors let you take U238, which is mostly useless for reactors, and turn it into Pu238, which is a great source of energy.

    Maybe this is also practice for a larger project down the road.

  • secret missions (Score:4, Funny)

    by lowrydr310 (830514) on Monday June 27 2005, @02:22PM (#12923603)
    Project managers say that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions and they declined to divulge any details.

    Secret Missions? Come on, we all know that plutonium is the perfect fuel to produce the 1.21 Jigawatts that our flux capacitors need.

  • From the article:
    "Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming."

    North and upwind of Grand Teton, eh? Sounds like we are going to be sending some pollution up Canada's way. On behalf of all Americans, I apologize.

    • Or, in other words, "all our radiation are belong to you."

      Ugh, I cannot believe I just made an "All Your Base" joke. I think I am going to be sick.

    • Speaking of Grand Teton...do you know how the name translates into English? [altavista.com]
      • D'OH
        "Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming."

        I read that "west" as "north" and deduced that the wind from the plant would be moving north into Canada, not west into my beloved home state of Oregon. OK I'll read more carefully next time.

  • DIY is too expensive (Score:3, Funny)

    by GlobalEcho (26240) on Monday June 27 2005, @02:25PM (#12923646)
    program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory

    If we're running low, why not just buy some more from North Korea?
  • 330 pounds of plutonium occupies a volume of about 7.5 liters.

    • FYI (Score:2, Informative)

      by swelke (252267)
      Wikipedia article here [wikipedia.org]
      Plutonium 239 is the one used in nuclear weapons and some nuclear power plants. Pu238 has a halflife of 88 years, and the decay mode is fission (so it outputs quite a lot of energy) or alpha emission. Quoth the wiki:

      "The plutonium isotope 238Pu is an alpha emitter with a half-life of 87 years. These characteristics make it well suited for electrical power generation for devices which must function without direct maintenance for timescales approximating a human lifetime. It is ther
    • 330 pounds of plutonium occupies a volume of about 7.5 liters.

      Huh? What's that in hogsheads?

      -

  • Its about time. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Momoru (837801) on Monday June 27 2005, @03:02PM (#12924159) Homepage Journal
    This plutonium is sorely needed to aid in our national defense. Thanks to treaties signed by some nancy pants presidents of the past we are only down to a measly 4,000 or so ICBMs.
    • Perhaps you meant nuclear bombs? You know.. The things that make an ICBM something other than a big metal tube filled with fuel? Too bad you don't need this stuff to make one though...

      I think it's for much cooler stuff. Like a spy cellphone that runs linux with a standby time of 600 hours!

    • > Thanks to treaties signed by some nancy pants presidents of the past we are only down to a measly 4,000 or so ICBMs.

      Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush? Yeah, what pansies.
    • Insightful?
      Those 4000 ICBMs are quite enough to make Earth uninhabitable several times over. You really don't need more.
  • What, no Mr. Fusion?
  • Nuclear batteries made of it are best known for powering spacecraft that go where sunlight is too dim to energize solar cells.

    So what exactly are they planning on spying where the sun don't shine?
  • I can't think of the exact agreement, but nuclear material is not allowed in orbit because satellites must be deorbited and could cause massive contamination. More likely the secret espionage devices are about the size of a nickel and run for years.

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