[NukeNet] [no-new-nukes-yall] RE: More on PU Shortage and NASA Missions

Sat Mar 15 20:29:31 EDT 2008

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my questions.  Bob, you made the discussion of PU 238 very understandable.  Your first point clears up much of the controversy.  The question needs to be put in the context of the current situation.  Some people who were anti-nuclear now support the idea of a nuclear revival.  Do any of you think that we need any of the current administrations proposals?.  And one thing I left our of my questions, is:  "What is your stand on DU munitions?"   They are a by product of the nuclear industry.  By last count, over 200,000 Gulf WAr I veterans are receiving benefits.  Many people believe our veterans health problems are the result of these weapons.  Remember the book, "Killing Our Own?"  

 A reporter for the Seattle Times, Duff Wilson was nominated for a Pulitzer prize for his book, "Fateful Harvest"  that details how toxic waste is disposed of in fertilizer.  It's not all nuclear, but nuclear waste was mentioned.   Try to find a copy of it. 

I believe that we need to be nuclear free, and carbon free.  (See Arjun's blueprint.)  I think that GNEP is dangerous, and bombplex is outrageous.  We called for a "Shut Down" of the entire nuclear industry, except for medicine, in the 1970's.  I was the Honicker in the Honicker vs. Hendrie case.  Now, I am promoting "cool cities" and advocate that cities install Nanosolar Powersheets on all  municipal buildings, schools, and public housing projects to jump start the solar industry.  Since the only firm that produces these in San Jose, California, I proposed to our mayor that our city, LaGrange Ga. promote the sitting of one in our industrial park.  

I organized a LaGrange Group of the Sierra Club in October to promote "cool cities" here.   It's a project of the National Sierra club. .  There are over 800 "cool cities" presently.  If all of them invested in solar for their municipal buildings, schools, and public housing projects, and every state had a net metering law based on the California model, pretty soon Nanosolar PowerSheets would fulfill their promise when Popular Science awarded them the 2007 innovation of the year award.  They were suppose to cost only 1/10th the amount that conventional Solar Photovoltaic Panels cost.  At that price, instead of $40,000 for a residential application, homeowners could buy them for $4,000.  If we were guaranteed that we could sell our excess electricity back to our utility, as the California law mandates, solar wouldn't even need the federal subsidy.  We should all promote dropping every cent of subsidy for nuclear, coal,  gas and oil.  If your city has a Sierra Club group join, and if it doesn't, start one.  

I want a Nanosolar Powersheet on my white roof, and I want a plug in hybrid car that I can charge in my own garage, that will go 1500 miles on a tank of gas.  This will give us true energy independence.  Instead of allowing the public to be falsely influenced to jump on the nuclear bandwagon, let's all jump on the solar bandwagon. By the way, you can google "Nanosolar" .  It is a non silicon based technology. 

No Nukes, Ya'll, no new nukes, no old nukes, no nuclear power plants, no nuclear bombs and no nukes in space.  .

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us.

Jeannine     

To: djhonicker at msn.com; nukeresister at igc.orgCC: kcumbow at greatlakes.net; no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com; nukenet at energyjustice.netFrom: kitbob at erols.comDate: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:08:33 -0400Subject: Re: [no-new-nukes-yall] RE: [NukeNet] More on PU Shortage and NASA Missions

Dear All --

Pu-238 is generated in commercial nuclear power plants. According to DOE's spent fuel data, by the year 2030 the U.S. reactor fleet will have generated about 24 metric tons of Pu-238 (U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, Final Environmental Impact Statement, for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain,Nye County, Nevada, 2002, Appendix A. ) 
The process that the U.S. developed in the 1950's and early 1960's to make Pu-238 initially involved: (1) extensive recycling of reprocessed uranium in the weapons production reactors at Hanford and SRS to optimize the generation of uranium-236, which is not naturally present. (2) after several reprocessing  and subsequent irradiation campaigns enough U-236 was built up so that  the production reactors could produce neptunium-237 ( U-236 would capture a neutron); (3) the Np-237 would then be reprocessed and fabricated into "target elements" (4) the Np-237 target elements would then be irradiated in the production reactors producing plutonium-238 (through neutron capture); (5) the target elements , now containing Pu-238 would be reprocessed and  fabricated into battery sources at SRS and the Mound Laboratory for NASA. 
By the mid-late 1960's, Naval reactors were producing Np-237 because the fuel contained highly enriched uranium (90+% U-235).  Naval reactor fuel produced sufficient amounts of Np-237, so that it was was sent to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory to be reprocessed to separate Np-237. The NP-237 was then shipped to SRS where it was fabricated into  target elements and irradiated in the production reactors to make Pu-238, etc. Eventually, Los Alamos National Laboratory took on a smaller role of fabricating Pu-238 into battery sources. Demand for Pu-238 following the rise and decline of the NASA deep space missions. 
By the early 1990's the G.H.W. Bush administration determined that the costs and risks of making Pu-238 in DOE's antiquated production complex was too high, and shut-down the Idaho reprocessing plant,and Pu-238 fabrication operations. The U.S. then entered into an agreement with Russia to purchase Pu-238 at a much cheaper price. 
There now remains an excess of Np-237 left over from reprocessing that the U.S. would like to make into Pu-238 by building a new reactor at  Idaho. DOE is also coveting the growing backlog of naval reactor spent fuel at Idaho that it would like to reprocess. Best Regards,BobAt 08:39 AM 3/15/2008, Dolph Honicker wrote:
To:  Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa: If and until MOX fuel is developed and used in Nuclear Power Plants, plutonium is not a fuel for nuclear power plants, it is produced in the fuel and becomes a part of the waste, or if reprocessed, a part of the material for nuclear bombs.  What was the purpose of your response below?  Do you support any of the following: (1) MOX fuel production and use? (2) GNEP? (3) Complex Transformation, Bombplex? (4) More nuclear weapons? (5)  More nuclear power plants? (6) Bringing nuclear waste from other nations to the U.S. as Energy Solutions is now proposing? (7)  Allowing nuclear waste to be "disposed" of in commercial landfills? (8) Melting of radioactive metals and recycling them in consumer products? (9)  Using adult white males as the basis for radiation dose calculations, ignoring the most radiosensitive of the population, young children and fetuses? (10) Ignoring inhalation and ingestion in calculating radiation doses to the   What ties do you have to the nuclear industry or any of it's government, or  research arms?   Jeannine Honicker

Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 21:29:02 -0700
To: kcumbow at greatlakes.net; djhonicker at msn.com
From: nukeresister at igc.org
CC: no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com; nukenet at energyjustice.net
Subject: Re: [NukeNet] More on PU Shortage and NASA Missions
Just for the sake of clarity, the Pu-238 used for thermoelectric generators is not the isotope used in weapons, and in fact is uncommon among the Pu isotopes, as it is not among the isotopes in waste from nuclear reactors and is cumbersome to produce and isolate:  following is from the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
"Plutonium 238, is a radioactive isotope of plutonium with a half-life of 87.7 years and is a very powerful alpha emitter. Because of its high level of alpha activity, it is used for radioisotope thermoelectric generators and radioisotope heater units. The use of plutonium-238 in American and Russian (and old Soviet Union) spacecraft is somewhat controversial.
"Plutonium-238 was the first isotope of plutonium to be discovered. It was synthesized by Glenn Seaborg and associates in 1941 by bombarding uranium-238 with deuterons. Neptunium-238 is made as an intermediate product, which then decays to form plutonium-238. Plutonium-238 decays to Uranium-234 and then further along the radium series to Lead-206.
"Today, Plutonium 238 is usually prepared by the irradiation of neptunium 237, a minor actinide produced in nuclear reactors, that can be recovered from spent nuclear fuel during reprocessing, or by the irradiation of americium in a reactor. In both cases, the targets are subjected to a chemical treatment, including dissolution in nitric acid to extract the plutonium-238. A 100kg sample of light water reactor fuel that has been irradiated for three years contains only about 700 grams of neptunium 237, and the neptunium must be extracted selectively.
"The United States currently has limited facilities to produce plutonium-238. Since 1993, the U.S. has purchased all of the plutonium-238 it has used in space probes from Russia. 16.5 kilograms total have been purchased.[1]"
Jack
-- 

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