USA to produce Plutonium 238 in Idaho

[captaincold]

Just read this on the cover of the Seattle Pi.
Apparently for "National Security" purposes.

"Plutonium 238 is said to be "100's" of times more radioactive than Plutonium 239 which is used in nuclear weapons"

[Mookyjooky]

Awesome. USA rocks. Thank God for modern Science.

[Quackzilla]

Major Radiation: Alpha - 5.49 MeV

Alpha particals cannoth penetrate paper, much less skin. They will, however, damage organ tissue if ingested or inhaled.

Because Plutonium 238 is a very high alpha emitter, inhalation or iingestion is deadly.

External exposure is not dangerous, but it still must be handled with care, and properly contained. It is used for nuclear power, and any benefits greatly outweight the virtually nonexistant risks.

[Mookyjooky]

Pretty much, nuclear energy is not only the best energy resource on the planet...but one of the safest. I welcome nuclear power with open arms.

Without it, we wouldnt have enough energy to power half of america.

[Quillion]

Muahahaha!

I will steal it and hold the world hostage.

"Pay me one hundred billion dollars or I will secretly make America eat Plutonium."

Muahahaha!

[captaincold]

Pretty much, nuclear energy is not only the best energy resource on the planet...but one of the safest. I welcome nuclear power with open arms.

Without it, we wouldnt have enough energy to power half of america.

Ok replace USA with another country, like say Canada/Japan/France etc...
How would you feel then?

It's foolish to consider manufaturing this considering the state of the world right now.

[Quackzilla]

Canada wouldn't be safe, but nuclear manufacturing plants in France and Japan are tighter than virgin assholes when it comes to security.

[Mookyjooky]

Ok replace USA with another country, like say Canada/Japan/France etc...
How would you feel then?

It's foolish to consider manufaturing this considering the state of the world right now.

Ok, but why stop there? Why not we just have a chernobyl reunion? Get all the old guys together and have them manufacture and store the stuff in a run down winn-dixie. In fact, the only protection they would have from the radiation is stacked boxes of old lucky charms.

Nuclear meltdown? Clean up on isle 5!

Or, we could not make hypothetical questions...and stick with the facts. Is it in the US? yes. Then lets stick with that.

[jmcc]

Idaho? Mutant potato infantry, huh, government? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard!

[David85]

We need it to power things. We normally get it from Russia, but our deal with them doesn't let us use if for "military resources", so we need to make our own because we ran out. I see no issue with this.

[captaincold]

Ok, but why stop there? Why not we just have a chernobyl reunion? Get all the old guys together and have them manufacture and store the stuff in a run down winn-dixie. In fact, the only protection they would have from the radiation is stacked boxes of old lucky charms.

Nuclear meltdown? Clean up on isle 5!

Or, we could not make hypothetical questions...and stick with the facts. Is it in the US? yes. Then lets stick with that.


How is it a hypothetical question?
You just said that Nuclear Power is a great & safe source for power right?
Well it's safe to say that EVERY country knows that & now that we're considering doing it in these hostile times, what makes you think that they won't do the same? I'm pretty sure they were hesitant to even consider the thought of making these types of materials in war times.

These other countries don't have the same security measures that we have here in the USA & in the post 9/11 world it's utterly foolish to even consider making these types of materials.

Our number 1 concern now is NATIONAL SECURITY, not energy.

[David85]

And this isn't a national security risk. We have it to begin with, we have used it for 60 years, and the terrorist have never gotten they hands on it.

Plus guess what? Energy is important and these things have been used for 60 years and never an issue. It's commonly used in NASA's deep space probes.

If terrorists want to "nuke" us they will hit a power plant with a plane, that is so easily done.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

You could fly a plane into a nuke plant's cooling towers and nothing would happen. Three Mile Island is not that far from the Harrisburg airport and the towers there were meant to withstand a direct strike from a widebody jet.

Plutonium 238 has no practical military value for bomb deisgns. Just because something is radioactive doesn't mean it has weapons grade applications. You could make a "dirty" bomb with it but not a fission or fusion weapon. Dirty bombs though have absolutely zero conventional military value.

If anything this stuff is going to be used for missile defence applications fueling weapons (Multi gigawatt lasers on ships or airplanes.) and or space platforms.

[Quackzilla]

If terrorists want to "nuke" us they will hit a power plant with a plane, that is so easily done.
Triggering a nuclear fission reaction can not be done by flying a plane into a nuclear power plant.

It is a complicated process that involves splitting an atom by adding neutron to it and destabilizing it.

Also, since power plants don't use weapons grade uranium or weapons grade plutonium, unless the terrorists stole it and did and processed it into weapons grade material (not easy, not cheap), there is no way it would blow up anyway.

The worst a terrorist could do is get into the processing plant (impossible), steal the radioacive material (alsoimpossible), strap it to a bomb, and blow it up to spread it around. And even a "dirty bomb" wouldn't do much damage using Plutonium 238 because it would neeeed to be vaporized and inhaled or land in someones food to kill someone.

But to think flying a plane into a nuclear power plant would cause a meltdown is ridiculus.


And to the guy worrying about foreign countries using nuclear power, sercurity guards in European and Russian nuclear power plants are more like soldiers than guards, and they are armed with machinegunes, rifles, and the patrols have submachineguns and pistols.
If you try and get into a French nuclear plant you would be extremely lucky if your family could identify your body.

[David85]

And the twin towers were meant to withstand a plane crash, that turned out well didn't it?

My point was there are easier ways to try to hurt the USA then taking this which will just power things on military missions.