[HN Gopher] The surprising afterlife of unwanted atom bombs
___________________________________________________________________
The surprising afterlife of unwanted atom bombs
Author : happyopossum
Score : 22 points
Date : 2022-11-18 19:27 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The US has been moving away from high-yield bombs for a while;
| here's the highest yield bombs in the US arsenal and the dates of
| their retirement:
|
| B41: 25MT, retired in 1976
|
| B53: 9MT retired in 2011
|
| B83: 1.2MT retired 2022
| chasd00 wrote:
| in the world of nuclear weapons i didn't think 1.2MT was that
| particularly high of a yield. Wikipedia leads me to believe
| that the majority of nuclear weapons deployed in the US are in
| the 100-500KT range. Given that yields are shrinking (i assume
| globally as well) I wonder how that impacts fallout prediction
| maps that probably haven't been updated in a long time. Also,
| assuming the number of warheads is staying constant or going
| down then the total energy on tap is going down too. I guess
| increases in stealth, detection, and accuracy make up for the
| decrease in power when it comes to a nuclear deterrent.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
| harimau777 wrote:
| When I studied nuclear weapons history in college, the professor
| mentioned that an important purpose of decommissioning nuclear
| devices was to provide jobs for the engineers that built them so
| that they aren't financially tempted to build them for an enemy.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Contrary to a lot of people I know, I think nuclear weapons are
| largely a good thing and _the_ reason we've had peace in Europe
| for 80 years. I will stand by my claim that Ukraine wouldn't be
| in their situation if they had not willingly disarmed themselves.
|
| Of course I wish that we wouldn't need nuclear warheads capable
| of total annihilation to keep peace, but I'm afraid that's just
| unrealistic.
| fredgrott wrote:
| You remember wrong, it was Not Ukraine that disarmed.
|
| It was Russia removing their control of Nukes under their
| control in Ukraine.
|
| Somewhat a big difference.
| gregwebs wrote:
| The idea that Ukraine could have defended themselves with nukes
| comes from not understanding what was going on when the USSR
| fell apart. The nukes were placed in Ukraine by Russia since
| Ukraine was a border region of the USSR. Ukraine did not have
| control of the nukes. Russia probably would have attacked them
| early on and destroyed the nukes or taken over the country
| before they could ever weaponize them and find the billions of
| dollars needed to maintain a nuclear fleet while they were
| suffering hyperinflation.
|
| https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2022/02/06/could-ukraine-...
|
| https://www.icanw.org/did_ukraine_give_up_nuclear_weapons
|
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2015.1...
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/dLR60
| johnea wrote:
| Why is this surprising to anyone?
|
| Did someone think the plutonium was going to disappear?
|
| This is why ALL nuclear power is a disaster. Even after this
| material is used to boil water for a few years, it's still highly
| radioactive for millennia.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| Can we ban smug feigned incredulity posts already?
| i386 wrote:
| You know how to log off right?
| fuoqi wrote:
| Footprint of spent nuclear fuel is laughably small when
| compared to other industrial processes and it can be reduced
| even further by using fast-neutron "burner" reactors. Why do
| you complain about nuclear and not about "immortal" heavy
| metals, which have several orders of magnitude bigger impact on
| ecology and human health?
| pinewurst wrote:
| That's why we should be using reprocessed MOX fuel not once
| through and bury.
| philipkglass wrote:
| That was originally the plan for surplus weapons plutonium.
| In 2007 the United States started building a MOX facility at
| Savannah River for turning the old weapons plutonium into
| power reactor fuel. Its cost and time to completion ballooned
| far beyond original estimates and it was ultimately canceled.
|
| "Cost estimate for MOX facility at Savannah River Site swells
| to $47.5 billion"
|
| https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/news/2015/04/22/cost-.
| ..
|
| "US MOX facility contract terminated"
|
| https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/US-MOX-facility-
| cont...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_River_Site#MOX_Fuel_F.
| ..
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Exactly. The plutonium in nuclear waste _is not waste_ , it's
| a fuel at least as valuable as 235U. Reprocessing not only
| reuses the Pu, with fast reactors it can be used to convert
| almost all 238U to 239Pu which is a valuable fuel. This
| allows us to get 60x more energy out of natural uranium -- we
| can stop enriching uranium and fuel our civilization for
| hundreds of years based on the "waste" that is already above.
|
| The waste that remains after reprocessing in a fast cycle are
| fission products that will decay so much in 1000 years that
| the waste is less radioactive than the original uranium ore.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| What's the concentration of Pu in the output of a modern
| high burnup reactor? What is the ratio of that to the
| concentration of fissile products needed for fuel?
|
| Cs137 and Sr90 lasting 'mere' centuries isn't helping your
| case any. Especially when existing MOX programs spill more
| than Fukushima and TMI combined as standard operating
| procedure.
| ProAm wrote:
| > it's still highly radioactive for millennia
|
| So it space and were actively trying to send people up there to
| live and colonize.
| canadianfella wrote:
| shamskazi wrote:
| Do we have a better alternative than nuclear power right now?
| badrabbit wrote:
| What is better? Hydrogen and Hydroelectric might be cheaper
| in the short term, nuke plants are very expensive. Most
| countries can't get nuke plants either even if they can
| afford them, you can't sell it to them like you can with
| hydrogen.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Yes. Renewables with no storage can cover 30-50% of world
| energy (not just electricity). Nuclear tops out at around 5%
| if we go all in now at around the same total cost. Storage
| technologies exist for the rest at about the cost of nuclear
| (but with actual ability to scale), but are not necessary en
| masse yet and are likely to drop in price by the time they
| are.
| simondotau wrote:
| > _highly radioactive for millennia_
|
| Something can be highly radioactive for a short time,
| moderately radioactive for a long time, or slightly radioactive
| for a very long time.
|
| If something is "radioactive for millenia" then it's probably
| so mild that you could store in your underpants without I'll
| effects.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| https://www.world-
| nuclear.org/getmedia/cdcb8173-3843-4e4a-9d...
|
| Have a little snack consisting of 1 gram of americium and 7
| grams of neptunium 237, or store an equivalently active gamma
| emitter in your underpants.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-18 23:00 UTC)