London Nuke Plant Loses 30 Kilos of Plutonium 613
solafide writes "The Globe and Mail reports 'A British nuclear-reprocessing plant [at Sellafield] cannot account for nearly 30 kilograms of plutonium, but authorities believe it is an accounting issue rather than a loss of potential bomb-making material, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority said.' Although it says later plutonium is only 1% of what they deal with there. The Times Online has more details."
Bomb em! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Informative)
It seems to be a myth that plutonium is very poisonous. See fx the wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] or The Myth of Plutonium Toxicity [russp.org]
Re:Bomb em! (Score:5, Informative)
Oxidation states (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, I'd like to point out also that the same atom can have different toxicity depending on its oxidation state. If you have seen Erin Brockovich, where the whole case was Cr(VII) being measured with the emission limit of Cr(III), causing poisoning among the population, well that's the same thing.
U and Pu are actinides, and that means they can have many different oxidation states, each with its own chemistry.
This is also why lead in gasoline and paint is carcinogen, while veterans have lived with lead bullets in their body for decades.
I call bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
http://russp.org/BLC-3.html
From Wikipedia's article titled "Plutonium":
As of 2003, there has yet to be a single human death officially attributed to plutonium exposure. Naturally-occurring radium is about 200 times more radiotoxic than plutonium, and some organic toxins like botulism toxin are still more toxic. Botulism toxin, in particular, has a lethal dose in the hundreds of pg per kg,
Re:I call bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
Alpha particles are quite heavy and are strongly interacting, which means that they have very short range. ie. with external exposure, most of the alphas are stopped by the skin & outer layers. But anyway, I agree with the general comment that the danger of plutonium toxicity is overstated. See here [fortfreedom.org] for a better source
Re:I call bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:5, Informative)
The reaility is that the cancer rates around Basra, parts of ex-Ugo, Western Bulgaria, Western Romania and so on are caused by the choice of targets for "shock and awe" campaigns.
The shock and awe campaigns blanket bombed into oblivion the industrial potential of the target countries - Iraq and Serbia. This industrial potential was mostly built in the late sixties and early seventies using enormous quantities of Asbestous and plastics that emit carcinogenous chemicals when burning. All this got released when they were bombed back into the stone age.
Which in turn resulted in tens of thousands of people to die, dieing or who shall die of cancer in the targeted areas and the areas downwind from it (Bulgaria and Romania on the Balkans and Iran in the Gulf).
This has been blamed by various shallow journalistic research on depleted uranium. It may have a role, but it is minor. The major reason is the war crime idea of "Shock and Awe" in first place.
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Insightful)
The distressing thing about the shock and awe campaign was not only the physical act, but the propaganda or presentation of it. Officials (and media) were openly gloating and praising the destruction. One of the reasons I was content to have our obviously biased and anti-US news in Ireland (RTÉ) as one of my news sources.
"Shock and awe" was quite despicable all in all. I can say that regardless of what it was in response to (or what it was "pre-empting").
Going out to "s
Not sure how we're using that 'S and A' term (Score:3, Interesting)
The major reason is the war crime idea of "Shock and Awe" in first place.
Aw, what's the matter? You don't get a cathartic thrill out of the idea of inflicting "shock and awe" on a massive scale, just like the 9/11 attacks inflicted it on
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Insightful)
False (Score:3, Informative)
The idea behind blitzkrieg isn't a massive bombing campaign - It's to advance in an invasion so rapidly that the enemy has no time to fall back and regroup.
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3)
Bowling Balls (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:5, Informative)
Power grade plutonium doesn't have that problem to the same extent, because the reaction doesn't have to happen at a precisely controlled moment.
Separating out Pu-239 from Pu-240 is a similar problem to separating U-235 from U-238: slow, tedious, and lots of centrifuges and similar. Because the relative weights are so close together, it's a significantly harder problem. This is why the production of weapons grade plutonium requires very regular reprocessing of fuel from the reactor core; otherwise, you'll get too much Pu-240, and it becomes too hard.
Re:Bomb em! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=plutonium+refining [google.com]
Re:Bomb em! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps information about nuclear physics was hard to come by in the early 1950s, but nowadays it takes no effort to learn about. Heck, I once ran into a paper discussing ways to manufacture effective seals for a gas centrifuge plant
Ever read about the "Nuclear Boy Scout"? As far as I could tell when trying to see if it was an urban legend, it checks out - a teenager built a simple nuclear reactor for generating small amounts of plutonium in his back yard (pitchblende, beryllium foil for generating neutrons from alpha particles, and radium paint (used for luminous dials)). It wasn't good for much except endangering the health of those who spend too much time near it, but it just goes to show what you can do.
The hard part isn't learning how nuclear tech works; it's pretty much public domain. The hard part is the implementation. The scale of operations that you need, the corrosive chemicals that you're dealing with (and depending on your method, many other constraints as well) are what limit nuclear tech to states willing to invest significant resources.
Re:Bomb em! (Score:4, Informative)
wrong element... (Score:2)
it is possible to make a nuclear bomb out of any element. for some odd reason, people think radioactive = nuclear bomb.
while it will not tell you anything about bombs, watch october sky to see something about thinking.
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:4, Interesting)
I realize it's not very effective as a weapon with direct results but should be enough to make a point.
The total cancer deaths added to the world over time with the Chernobyl disaster is estimated at 1.5 milion. After some googling it appears Caesium and Plutonium have similar effects:
These novel man-made radioactive isotopes like Strontium-90, Caesium-137 and Plutonium-239, become inhaled as fine particles and trapped in lung tissue. They are then absorbed into the lymphatic system of the body where they cause cancer by irradiating local cells and attacking the immune system. Recent research undertaken by Green Audit in Wales and funded by the Irish government has shown that excess cancer risk exists in those populations of towns on the north Wales coast which are adjacent to mud banks and estuaries where high levels of such radioactive isotopes are found.
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm looking at John Gofman on the net, and he seems to be pretty controversial.
For example, he believes that 75% of all breast cancer in the US was caused by medical X-rays!
The environmental groups are quick to cite his work, but many respected scientists in the nuclear field seem to consider him a quack.
Got another reference?
Take it easy, please (Score:5, Funny)
Bomb? (Score:3, Funny)
They have the plutonium, now all they need is an old Delorean and time as we know it is no more!
Cheers,
Adolfo
Re:Bomb em! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Funny)
At least Sellafield is in the same country as London though - the usual comments from the Americans would be similar to me saying "America? That's a little place in Torronto isn't it?"
Re:Bomb em! (Score:5, Informative)
Please refer to the entry for the word, nation, in your nearest dictionary and stop bothering me. Or if you don't have one of those, look at the entries for country [wikipedia.org], nation [wikipedia.org] and state [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia.
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Informative)
Short answer: So what? What bearing does that have on your argument that if something isn't mentioned in their list of members, it is not a nation.
Long answer: They are called the United Nations because their organisation was founded to unite (and build br
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Informative)
No Wales is a nation [wikipedia.org] and a principality [wikipedia.org], but not a country [wikipedia.org] or a state [wikipedia.org] (even though it has its own legislative National Assembly [wikipedia.org]). See my aunt post.
Wrong. England [wikipedia.org] is a seperate area (which some argue is a nation in itself but some argue is a mixture of other nations) from Wales [wikipedia.org]. They are both part of the United Kingdom [wikipedia.org].
Simple. Great Britain [wikipedia.org] is an island and ex-
Re:Bomb em! (Score:3, Informative)
It's a leeetle late for that. We more or less gave the UK The Bomb before many of our parents were born.
Of course, they seem to be following the philosophy of "Speak softly and carry a big thermonuclear device." You hear a lot about the US and Russia, you hear about French special forces vs. Greenpeace over nuclear testing in the South Pacific, but the UK seems content in letting everybody forget who else has The Bomb and the submarin
Geee... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Geee... (Score:3, Funny)
88 mph (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing to worry about (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like nobody needs that irky little thing anymore. Not even if you're dealing with stuff that could blow up half the world.
Sheesh.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Great Scott! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Great Scott! (Score:2)
London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:2)
Rather amateurish error to make, though.
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:2)
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:5, Interesting)
When you take scale into account, saying Sellafield is in London is totally like saying the Grand Canyon is in Washington D.C.
And what are you on about? The UK has a lot of open land. It's nothing like the US, but more of the UK is fields or moor than anything else.
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you been to the American southeast recently? Is the US really homogonized? Maybe New York and Washington DC have extremely similar cultures (~300 miles), but go down to Alabama and contrast it with New York. Not so homogenous anymore.
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:3, Insightful)
Italians, Swedes, Poles and Hungarians are culturally quite distinct from most of the people I'll meet on my daily round (for the sake of this discussion we'll leave out those I know who have immigrated to London from those other places).
People from these places speak different languages, use different money, obey different laws, decide their vote on different issues, b
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:5, Informative)
Making a "mistake" like saying a city is near another is very easy to make.
Quot Erat Demonstrandum
You carry on being ignorant, OK? "No real open land"? LMAO. What we have might not be on the same scale as the great swathes of untouched country that you'll come across in parts of North America but it's beautiful enough and nowhere near to the mental picture you seem to be painting of a landscape that's concreted over entirely.
Saying that Sellafield is anywhere near London isn't a small mistake, it's a huge one. In fact, in this case the story headine is extremely misleading as it gives the immediate impression that the nuclear plant is in London, which isn't just false but is rather stupid too (given that we're talking about a nuclear facility). It's like suggesting a nuclear plant somewhere in southern California is actually in Los Angeles, which is just plain dumb.
Sorry but at best you come across as foolish and at worst you come across as downright ignorant. Stick your poor QEDs and half-thought out arguments somewhere where they aren't likely to be ripped apart by simple argument. Next time, think first and type later.
Re:London is nowhere near Sellafield. (Score:3, Informative)
Err... the San Onofre plant is less than 50 km from LA. Not quite in the city, but not so far off, either, and close enough that a serious accident would have a very large effect on the city itself.
--Tom
Uranium regeneration is a good thing though (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully fusion will come along sometime soon [thewatt.com]...
Re:Uranium regeneration is a good thing though (Score:2, Informative)
This happened in the U.S. too. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This happened in the U.S. too. (Score:2, Funny)
Why let things like that "seem more important" than say "funding for my good 'ol boys" for a war in Iraq?
Re:This happened in the U.S. too. (Score:2)
The truth is out there. But who is looking???????????? Do YOU care enough? Me neither. I got money to make. When a nuke goes off, I'll just do what everyone else does.
Re:This happened in the U.S. too. (Score:3, Funny)
Find a twinkie factory?
Tom
Re:This happened in the U.S. too. (Score:3, Funny)
Burn?
Re:Fuck you, tom (Score:2)
Who needs a hug? Come here you sad sad little AC.
Tom
Jokes (Score:5, Informative)
A nuclear weapon only uses about a grapefruit sized piece of fissionable material.
And only about 8 grams of matter were actually converted to enegery by the original nukes used against Japan.
30 kg missing seems like a big deal to me. I'd like to know for sure whether its an accounting issue or someone else has it.
Re:Jokes (Score:2)
Actually, it wasn't an accounting issue. You see, the spreadsheet was run on a Pentium...
Re:Jokes (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Now try to guess how much a grapefruit-sized piece of plutonium would weigh.
Re:Jokes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Jokes (Score:3, Funny)
((4/3)Pi((d/2)^3))*(19.84) > 50 kg
Therefore, it is obvious that all grapefruits have a diameter of 16.88 cm and the plutonium missing is inadequate to construct a bomb.
Re:Jokes (Score:3, Interesting)
For any Americans who are reading... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For any Americans who are reading... (Score:5, Funny)
Um... where's England?
Re:For any Americans who are reading... (Score:3, Funny)
Trigger-happy reporting? Not on /. ! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Trigger-happy reporting? Not on /. ! (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The missing 30Kg is discrepancy between the estimated amount of reclaimed fuel and the actual amount for a whole yeare (See previous post). As any engineer involved with nuclear reclamation will tell you there is no precise method of calculating the amount of fuel that will be reclaimed from nuclear waste until after it has been reclaimed.
2. On several occasions (years) Sellafield has reclaimed more fuel than estimated.
Re:Trigger-happy reporting? Not on /. ! (Score:3, Interesting)
British Nuclear Fuels, which runs the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria, claimed yesterday that no nuclear material had gone missing from the site
Notice that line is unqualified. If they have not ruled out accounting, being the issue, it is not yet a fact that anything is missing. Therefore the statement is true. The rest of that comment is pure misdirection. Yes it is true that the total amount of
Why this makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
What's scary is that the margins of error are big enough to include several bombs worth of material.
A little out of date, /. (Score:4, Informative)
From what I read on http://news.bbc.co.uk, the "missing" plutonium was a result of the way in which material was accounted for, not an actual loss.
Invade England (Score:2)
Re:Invade England (Score:3, Funny)
30 kilos? (Score:2)
If it wasn't weapons-grade, you could make one hell of a dirty bomb out of it, but not really anything that makes a big boom with a pretty mushroom cloud on top.
Lookie here [nuclearweaponarchive.org]
3000kg (Score:3, Funny)
"cannot account for nearly 30 kilograms of plutonium... Although it says later plutonium is only 1% of what they deal with there."
Does this mean they are missing 3000kg of uranium?
SWEET! (Score:2)
London? vs Sellafield or is that Windscale. (Score:2, Interesting)
Sellafield is well known for mistakes, so well known in fact that it changed it's name to Sellafield, it's old name was Windscale.
Nothing new here, please move along.
http://www.nucleartourist.com/events/windscal.htm [nucleartourist.com]
bah (Score:2)
Reactor grade plutonium isn't nearly as volatile as bomb plutonium. I wouldn't say this is such large concern, as it takes a good deal of energy/tech to create bomb grade shit out of reactor grade shit.
Aside from a dirty bomb, of course. Or something wholely unenthralling.
that would be difficult (Score:2, Informative)
ergo, i don't think i would be extremely worried if someone had stolen it.
hmm (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds me of Good Omens... (Score:5, Funny)
There was a pause. "We wouldn't say escaped," said the spokesman. "Not escaped. Temporarily mislaid."
"You mean it is still on the premises?"
"We certainly cannot see how it could have been removed from them," said the spokesman.
"Surely you have considered terrorist activity?"
There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of someone who has had enough and is going to quit after this and raise chickens somewhere, "Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite strong terrorists. Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours."
"But you said the power station is still producing electricity," gasped the interviewer.
"It is."
"How can it still be doing that if it hasn't got any reactors?"
"We don't know," he said. "We were hoping you clever buggers at the BBC would have an idea."
Re:Reminds me of Good Omens... (Score:3, Informative)
And you just made my evening, thank you sir.
To any who are curious: The book is called, "Good Omens", it's by Terry Prachet ( Disc world fame ) and
It's freakin' hilarious. Really the only book I have ever read that made me laugh out loud.
London!? (Score:4, Informative)
missing detail (Score:5, Funny)
What happen? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmph. Americans can lose nuclear material too. (Score:3, Interesting)
Halliburton misplaces Americium in Massachusetts, fails to notify Nuclear Regulatory Commission within federally-mandated deadline.
The blind. (Score:3, Informative)
That's a bad thing, but what really worries me is that the management of the Sellafield plant are probably right that the missing material was not removed from the facility. They are using the plutonium in the creation of Mixed OXide fuel (MOX), a mixture of plutonium- and uranium oxide fit for normal nuclear power plants. The process involved includes various complicated cutting, soaking, and moving activities which must be done remotely due to the extreme radiation hazard. Due to the reactions of the various substances involved, this process also results in accelerated and unusual state changes in the materials. So they're not really sure what happened to the stuff - where it may be lying around or how much of it has turned into what - even though it is still under their control. There wasn't an accounting error - they can't account for the stuff because their accounting system doesn't work. They don't understand the process well enough to predict the outcome. And that scares me.
Winsgale (Score:3, Interesting)
It's on eBay (Score:3, Funny)
Aha, the Kerr-McGee imbroglio! (Score:3, Interesting)
Reoccuring story from a biased media (Score:3, Insightful)
The headline screams "X kilos of plutonium missing" making it sound as if plutonium went missing in one chunk but down in the story it is always revealed that the loss is not unusual and is in fact perfectly in keeping with the expected error of the accounting system. In other words, nothing newsworthy whatsoever happened at all.
The fact that these audits get reported as if they were in fact news reveals the systemic anti-nuclear bias of the media.
Re:I know! (Score:2)
(For my fellow Americans there is a link. [wikipedia.org])
Re:Try Cumbria not London (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:why is plutonium important? (Score:3, Interesting)
So the best way to get some hanky panky going between two proton-rich nuclei is t