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#Post#: 1332--------------------------------------------------
No We NEVER Needed LWR Nuclear Power Plants to Make Nuclear Wea
pons
By: AGelbert Date: June 9, 2014, 11:09 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The MIC inspired propaganda myth about needing all those nuclear
power plants built after WWII in order to make bombs Part 1 of
2 Parts
This article is for JDwheeler and anyone else interested in the
truth about why we never needed to build all those water cooled
nuclear reactors for bomb grade material. That myth about
needing all those power plants to make bombs is another one of
those lies put out there to make us feel that it was "worth it"
HTML http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TzWpwHzCvCI/T_sBEnhCCpI/AAAAAAAAME8/IsLpuU8HYxc/s1600/nooo-way-smiley.gif<br
/>or "justified at the time"
HTML http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/stock/thumb_smiley-sign0105.gif<br
/>to build them. Read how we have been, and continue to be,
fleeced by the pro-nuke zealots.
[quote]Two types of atomic bomb were developed during the war. A
relatively simple gun-type fission weapon was made using
uranium-235, an isotope that makes up only 0.7 percent of
natural uranium. Since it is chemically identical to the most
common isotope, uranium-238, and has almost the same mass, it
proved difficult to separate.
Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment:
1. electromagnetic,
2. gaseous and
3. thermal.
Most of this work was performed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce
plutonium. Reactors were constructed at Oak Ridge and Hanford,
Washington, in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into
plutonium. The plutonium was then chemically separated from the
uranium.
Isotope separation
Natural uranium consists of 99.3% uranium-238 and 0.7%
uranium-235, but only the latter is fissile. The chemically
identical uranium-235 has to be physically separated from the
more plentiful isotope. Various methods were considered for
uranium enrichment, most of which was carried out at Oak Ridge.
The most obvious technology, the centrifuge, failed, but
electromagnetic separation, gaseous diffusion, and thermal
diffusion technologies were all successful and contributed to
the project. In February 1943, Groves came up with the idea of
using the output of some plants as the input for others.
In the electromagnetic process, a magnetic field deflected
charged particles according to mass. The process was neither
scientifically elegant nor industrially efficient. Compared with
a gaseous diffusion plant or a nuclear reactor, an
electromagnetic separation plant would consume more scarce
materials, require more manpower to operate, and cost more to
build.[/quote]
[img width=640
height=480]
HTML http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Clinton_Engineer_Works.png[/img]
Agelbert NOTE: Of interest to the reader in the map above are
the plants for Uranium-235 Concentration (Incredibly called
"enrichment" WTF?) Thermal diffusion S-50, Gaseous diffusion
K-25 and K-27, and electromagnetic separation Y-12. Y-12 used
TONS of silver for the coils. Most of it was recovered in the
period starting after the war to 1970. Electromagnetic
separation is too expensive.
Of course since General Groves had a blank check on the taxpayer
dime, he chose ALL THE ABOVE for obtaining weapons grade
Uranium. The X-10 plant was an air cooled reactor for obtaining
Plutonium. I feel sorry for the future cancer fatalities that
worked there.
[quote]
Gaseous diffusion
The most promising but also the most challenging method of
isotope separation was gaseous diffusion.
In November 1942 the Military Policy Committee approved the
construction of a 600-stage gaseous diffusion plant.
The production plant commenced operation in February 1945, and
as cascade after cascade came online, the quality of the product
increased. By April 1945, K-25 had attained a 1.1% enrichment
and the output of the S-50 thermal diffusion plant began being
used as feed. Some product produced the next month reached
nearly 7% enrichment. In August, the last of the 2,892 stages
commenced operation. K-25 and K-27 achieved their full potential
in the early postwar period, when they eclipsed the other
production plants and became the prototypes for a new
generation of plants.
Thermal diffusion
The thermal diffusion process was based on Sydney Chapman and
David Enskog's theory, which explained that when a mixed gas
passes through a temperature gradient, the heavier one tends to
concentrate at the cold end and the lighter one at the warm end.
Since hot gases tend to rise and cool ones tend to fall, this
can be used as a means of isotope separation.
Work commenced on 9 July 1944, and S-50 began partial operation
in September. Ferguson operated the plant through a subsidiary
known as Fercleve. The plant produced just 10.5 pounds (4.8 kg)
of 0.852% uranium-235 in October. Leaks limited production and
forced shutdowns over the next few months, but in June 1945 it
produced 12,730 pounds (5,770 kg).
By March 1945, all 21 production racks were operating. Initially
the output of S-50 was fed into Y-12, but starting in March 1945
all three enrichment processes were run in series. S-50 became
the first stage, enriching from 0.71% to 0.89%. This material
was fed into the gaseous diffusion process in the K-25 plant,
which produced a product enriched to about 23%. This was, in
turn, fed into Y-12, which boosted it to about 89%, sufficient
for nuclear weapons.][/quote]
AFTER THE WAR
[quote]Nichols recommended that S-50 and the Alpha tracks at
Y-12 be closed down. This was done in September. Although
performing better than ever, the Alpha tracks could not compete
with K-25 and the new K-27, which had commenced operation in
January 1946. In December, the Y-12 plant was closed.[/quote]
Agelbert NOTE: So, in 1946 the only game in town was Gaseous
diffusion for weapons grade Uranium.
HOWEVER, the only game in town for Plutonium was NOT Gaseous
Diffusion. They were having some difficulties with Plutonium
(the one they were really after then). The X-10 Plutonium plant
was air cooled and didn't work too well. The water cooled plants
at Hanford had all kind of problems but worked better. Plutonium
was found in the urine of scientists at Los Alamos which sort of
made working with Plutonium production rather unpopular. But
the military LOVED that Plutonium!
So what did they do? General Groves already had the propaganda
machine going full tilt since the bombs were dropped in Japan
praising everything nuclear (without mentioning the staggering
cost, of course). The propaganda was merely tweaked to put out
the "right" mindfork (I mean message, of course). Mind you,
after the war, there was a concerted effort to MAKE MONEY for
corporations like Du Pont and Eastman and several others that
had worked on the Manhattan Project. Never mind that the
taxpayer was going to get most of the bill for building the
nuclear poison factory infrastructure, predatory capitalism was
out to make some capital and make it look disarmingly profitable
(remember "too cheap to meter"?).
The military wanted weapons grade bomb material and the
corporations (part of the military industrial complex oligarchy
that runs this country) wanted to rake in the profits.
THOSE TWO GOALS of TPTB were what were combined to curse us with
the nuclear power plant poison factories sold to us as
electrical generation facilities. Admittedly, they do that. The
point is that it's much cheaper to generate electricity through
other means and also quite problematic for weapons grade
Plutonium. You need specialized reactors for that! There is an
irreconcilable conflict between the two purposes. Since they
could NOT, as you will see, combine the two (but needed to for
public approval) they LIED about it.
Gaseous Diffusion was, and is, more efficient than water cooled
nuclear reactors at obtaining weapons grade uranium-235. BUT, we
weren't going to build Uranium bombs anymore; we were going for
Plutonium! So even Gaseous Diffusion was becoming rapidly
obsolete. Going from U-235 to Plutonium is tricky but you don't
WANT to build a huge water cooled nuclear power plant to do it;
you need a very specialized and specific purpose reactor.
[color=purple]Why?
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_6656.gif
[quote]Uranium and plutonium are composed of several isotopes,
some of which are fissile. To produce an explosive device for
military purposes requires the percentage of fissile isotopes
(U-235 for uranium, Pu-239 for plutonium) present in the
material to be of the order of 93%. The levels reached in the
nuclear power industry are, however, much lower; less than 5%
for uranium and between 50 and 60% for plutonium.
Plutonium containing high quantities of fissile material i.e.
Pu-239 in the order of 90-95 %, is known as weapon-grade
plutonium. Plutonium containing lower concentrations, in the
range of 50-60 % is known as reactor-grade plutonium. The
defiitions of the various plutonium grades are expressed as a
percentage of the isotope Pu-240 which is considered as an
impurity for weapons manufacturers. [/quote]
Continued in Part 2
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/nuke-puke/no-we-never-needed-lwr-nuclear-power-plants-to-make-nuclear-weapons/msg1333/#msg1333
#Post#: 1333--------------------------------------------------
Re: No We NEVER Needed LWR Nuclear Power Plants to Make Nuclear
Weapons
By: AGelbert Date: June 9, 2014, 11:21 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The MIC inspired propaganda myth about needing all those nuclear
power plants built after WWII in order to make bombs Part 2 of 2
parts.
[quote]Plutonium-grade
Super-grade
Weapon-grade
Fuel-grade
Reactor-grade
Reactor-grade plutonium is produced in the core of a reactor
when uranium-238 is irradiated with neutrons. Unlike weapon
grade plutonium (which is relatively pure plutonium-239),
reactor grade plutonium is a mixture of plutonium-238, 239, 240,
241 and 242. [size=14pt] It is this mixture of isotopes which
renders reactor grade plutonium unsuitable as a weapon-grade
material.[/size][/quote]
Why?
[quote]The even numbered isotopes (plutonium-238, 240 and 242)
fission spontaneously producing high energy neutrons and a lot
of heat. In fact, the neutron and gamma dose from this material
is significant and the heat generated in this way would melt the
high-explosive material needed to compress the critical mass
prior to initiation. The neutrons can also initiate a premature
chain reaction thus reducing the explosive yield, typically to a
few percent of the nominal yield, sometimes called the "fizzle
yield". ;D Such physical characteristics make reactor-grade
plutonium extremely difficult to manipulate and control and
therefore explain its unsuitability as a bomb-making ingredient.
[/quote]
Hmmm... self initiating chain reaction - not a lot of fun for a
bomb storage facility.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/www_MyEmoticons_com__smokelots.gif<br
/> All those wild and wooly neutrons zapping everything around
does not sound like a normal day at the office. :o
And this was a problem too:
[quote]The odd numbered isotope, plutonium-241, is also a highly
undesirable isotope as it decays to americium-241 which is an
intense emitter of alpha particles, X and gamma rays.
Plutonium-241 has a half-life of 13.2 years which means
americium-241 accumulates quickly causing serious handling
problems.[/quote]
[move][font=courier]Alpha particles, X rays and GAMMA RAYS!
Yikes. I know, some wise guy is going to say that "Americium"
radionuclide is aptly named. ;D[/font][/move]
Water cooled nuclear power plants do NOT like to be powered down
or up. They like to operate at a certain level baseload.
Shutting one down is expensive and very time consuming. That is
another reason that harversting U-235 from the core of one these
reactors to use as feed stock for making Plutonium-239 somewhere
else is not practical.
Why? ???
By the way, LWR stands for Light Water Reactor.
[quote]Weapon-grade plutonium contains mainly Pu-239 which has a
half-life of 24,000 years and only very small quantities of
Pu-241 (unlike reactor-grade plutonium which can contain around
15% Pu-241.) It is thus relatively stable and can be safely
handled with a pair of thick gloves.
To achieve the high percentages of Pu-239 required for weapon
grade plutonium, it must be produced specifically for this
purpose. The uranium must spend only several weeks in the
reactor core and then be removed. For this to be carried out in
a LWR - the prevalent reactor design for electricity generation
- the reactor would have to be shut down completely for such an
operation. [/quote]
Agelbert NOTE: Sure, it's more stable than nitroglycerin maybe,
but you will never get ME to handle that stuff! Where was I?
Right. Making Plutonium pies :P for the MIC.
[quote]Reactors are generally purpose-built, and reactors built
and operated for plutonium production are less efficient for
electricity production than standard nuclear electric power
plants because of the low burnup restriction for production of
weapons grade plutonium.
The types nuclear fission reactors which have been found most
suitable for producing plutonium are graphite-moderated nuclear
reactors using gas or water cooling at atmospheric pressure and
with the capability of having fuel elements exchanged while on
line.[/quote]
To learn all you don't want to know ::) about the several
distinct classes of reactors (Research reactors, Propulsion
reactors, Space reactors and mobile power systems, Power
reactors, Breeder reactors and Production reactors). go here:
HTML http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/plutonium.htm
The big deal after the war was to make weapons grade
Plutonium-239 because it packs more explosive punch than a
Uranium bomb. You can see that there is a conflict between
making more electricity or making more Plutonium. There is also
a conflict in the type of reactor vessel for this or that.
So, they made up a nice story for us about how we need all those
bombs to preserve our freedoms and all those power plants were
helping out!
HTML http://www.u.arizona.edu/~patricia/cute-collection/smileys/lying-smiley.gif<br
/> They were not going to make Plutonium directly from water
cooled nuclear reactors but they let us BELIEVE they were. :o
;) The special purpose reactors came from the hard lessons
learned on the Plutonium air cooled graphite X-10 at Oak Ridge,
the water cooled special purpose one at Hanford and the work at
Los Alamos. Remember that Plutonium is very bad news to work
with. It's much, much more difficult to handle than Uranium
(which is quite toxic in its own right).
[quote]Because of the high rate of emission of alpha particles
and the element being specifically absorbed on bone the surface
and collected in the liver, plutonium, as well as all of the
other transuranium elements except neptunium, are radiological
poisons and must be handled with very special equipment and
precautions. Plutonium is a very dangerous radiological hazard.
Precautions must also be taken to prevent the unintentional
formulation of a critical mass. Plutonium in liquid solution is
more likely to become critical than solid plutonium. The shape
of the mass must also be considered where criticality is
concerned. [/quote]
So, as you can see, there is NO WAY that they could build 400
plus electricity generating nukes to produce Uranium-235
harvested at exactly the right time while shutting down the
power plant to send it to a Uranium to Plutonium transmutating
special purpose reactor. That means they've got them here and
there in secure areas (I hope!) where a special purpose reactor
makes weapons grade Plutonium. They already KNOW what Plutonium
does to us so I hope they aren't still experimenting on us...
[quote]During the Manhattan Project, which gave way to the
atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S.
scientists resorted to secret human testing via plutonium
injection on 18 unsuspecting, non-consenting patients. >:(
This included injecting soldiers with micrograms of plutonium
for Project Oak Ridge along with later injecting three patients
at a Chicago hospital. Imagine you’re an admitted patient,
helpless in a hospital bed, assuming that nothing is wrong when
the government suddenly appears and puts weapons-grade plutonium
in your blood. >:(
Out of the 18 patients, who were known only by their code-names
and numbers at the time, only 5 lived longer than 20 years after
injection. >:(
Along with plutonium, researchers also had fun :P with uranium.
At a Massachusetts hospital, between 1946 and 1947, Dr. William
Sweet injected 11 patients with uranium. He was funded by the
Manhattan Project. [img width=40
height=40]
HTML http://www.imgion.com/images/01/Angry-animated-smiley.jpg[/img]<br
/>
And in exchange for the uranium he received from the government,
he would keep dead tissue from the body of the people he killed
for scientific analysis on the effects of uranium exposure.
>:([/quote] [img width=40
height=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-051113192052.png[/img]<br
/>
HTML http://wariscrime.com/new/the-13-most-evil-us-government-human-experiments/
After the war, with all the debt we racked up, politicians and
the military knew the people wouldn't go for that. So the SCAM
was on because, despite water cooled nuclear power plants being
NOT USABLE for weapons Grade Plutonium, it was more profitable
for the "free market" investors while we-the-people were told it
was all for lots of cheap electricity so we must help build all
these "wonders of technology" with our taxes, bond issues or
whatever.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/2z6in9g.gif<br
/>
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/acigar.gif
[img width=50
height=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013200859.png[/img]
The point was to NOT have these hugely expensive projects on a
defense department budget BUT make people believe we NEEDED them
for national security.
HTML http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-scared005.gif
[img
width=40
height=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-051113192052.png[/img]<br
/> And of course, the government ensured we-the-people underwrot
e
the insurance coverage (to this day!) for nuclear poison factory
accidents because it seems the "free market" was a bit shy about
doing tha-a-a-t. ;) ;D
But the marketing and hype of all things nuclear was in full
tilt in 1946 in preparation for the bullding "bonanza", for a
few connected predators, of water cooled nuclear reactors. K-25
and K-27 were making lots of radionuclides for "our own good",
of course! A market had to be found for these "products" until
the new LWR parasites (uh, I mean electrical generation
facilities ;D ) could be built. It's the dawn of the ATOMIC
SCAM (uh, I mean "AGE", of course)...
[quote]The ability of the new reactors to create radioactive
isotopes in previously unheard-of quantities sparked a
revolution in nuclear medicine in the immediate postwar years.
Starting in mid-1946, Oak Ridge began distributing radioisotopes
to hospitals and universities. Most of the orders were for
iodine-131 and phosphorus-32, which were used in the diagnosis
and treatment of cancer. In addition to medicine, isotopes were
also used in biological, industrial and agricultural
research.[/quote]
The above is a touchy subject because cyclotrons can make most
of the radionuclides needed as tracers for medical tests (they
have extremely short half-lives from about a minute to a few
days). Again, you don't need a huge beast of a nuclear power
plant for them.
Here's what Groves, the Nuclear Con-artist, said in his farewell
nuclear propaganda puff piece:
[quote]On handing over control to the Atomic Energy Commission,
Groves [img width=80
height=045]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-241013183046.jpeg[/img]<br
/>bid farewell to the people who had worked on the Manhattan
Project:
Five years ago, the idea of Atomic Power was only a dream. You
have made that dream a reality. You have seized upon the most
nebulous of ideas and translated them into actualities. You have
built cities where none were known before. You have constructed
industrial plants of a magnitude [img width=30
height=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-051113192052.png[/img]<br
/>and to a precision heretofore deemed impossible. You built the
weapon which ended the War and thereby saved countless American
lives.
HTML http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/stock/thumb_smiley-sign0105.gif<br
/>
With regard to peacetime applications, you have raised the
curtain on vistas of a new world.[img width=30
height=30]
HTML http://www.imgion.com/images/01/Angry-animated-smiley.jpg[/img]<br
/>
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/d2.gif[img
width=30
height=30]
HTML http://www.emofaces.com/en/emoticons/n/nuclear-emoticon.gif[/img]<br
/>
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/acigar.gif
[img width=50
height=30]
HTML http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-devil12.gif[/img][/quote]
Source of most of the above quotes:
HTML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
When the quote is NOT from the Wikipedia article, I have
provided a different link. 8)
At that point, the Atomic Energy Commission began DOING what it
STILL DOES; tilting the energy "playing field" to make the water
cooled nuclear reactors look cost effective while maintaining
strict secrecy on accidents, cancer clusters, water pollution
and excessive water use, aquifer contamination, air pollution,
crop ground contamination, etc. It's been 24/7 LIES from the
words "go nuclear".
Have a nice day.
HTML http://www.freesmileys.org/emoticons/tuzki-bunnys/tuzki-bunny-emoticon-032.gif
#Post#: 1368--------------------------------------------------
Re: No We NEVER Needed LWR Nuclear Power Plants to Make Nuclear
Weapons
By: AGelbert Date: June 14, 2014, 12:56 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Nice comment on the above article (I posted it at Renewable
Energy Word too.) ;D
Geoff Thomas
June 13, 2014
[quote]
This is a most enjoyable discussion, I found A.G. Gelbert's
article particularly interesting, - a whole new area there, but
one thing I would like to introduce to these discussions is to
let go of the concept of Baseload, - it is meaningless,
emotionally loaded, and thoughtless.
One could talk of minimum load, maximum load, (up to 20 times
higher than minimum load), or even, stretching it, - (as it
ignores people, climate, fashion and picayune day to day
circumstances) - Average minimum and Average maximum, but
baseload? what does it mean? What is the base of baseload? - I
can't see any justification for not calling the minimum load as
baseload, so let's just call it minimum load and move on.
[/quote]
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/06/nuclear-giant-exelon-blasts-wind-energy#comm132461
#Post#: 1483--------------------------------------------------
Re: No We NEVER Needed LWR Nuclear Power Plants to Make Nuclear
Weapons
By: AGelbert Date: July 2, 2014, 12:12 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote]
Brian Donovan
July 1, 2014
Gilbert, I signed your petition. When I have long comments, I do
everything I can to organize them by topic, and eliminate all
excess spaces. I use an indent for paragraphs, rather than a
whole line.
But let me read through and respond to your comment. While I
agree that the argument was probably used to sell commercial
nuclear power, and commercial nuclear is not the most direct
route to nuclear weapons....weapons consideration do apply in
many ways. Commercial nuclear power is a great cover for weapons
programs. Yes, reactor spent fuel rods can be refined more
easily than ores to produce weapons grade materials. All the
tech used for commercial nuclear power is applicable to weapons.
HTML http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/04/how_does_reprocessing_fuel_rods_help_build_nuclear_bombs.html<br
/>
HTML http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/plutbomb.htm
It is easier to chemically separate plutonium from spent fule
than to enhance uranium.
HTML http://www.ricin.com/nuke/bg/bomb.html
You also completely leave out the CANDU reactor's bomb
potential
HTML http://ep.probeinternational.org/1998/06/07/why-candus-are-bomb-kits/<br
/>
Yes, if all the subsidize and gov breaks were removed, new
fossils and nuclear would lose in the market, but it's still not
fair not to give solar, wind and waste to fuels the sort of the
gov breaks fossils and nukes got for 100 and 50 years.
Your graphic is good, but it's even worse:
Without subsidies breaks and protection, electricity prices
would
be: rooftop solar Power: 3-6 cents/KWH
Wind Power: 6-7 cents/kWh
Nuclear Power: 11-20+ cents/kWh
Coal Power: 9-32+ cents/kWh
HTML http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/20/wind-power-subsidies-dont-compare-to-fossil-fuel-nuclear-subsidies/#ABfIXAl3UjBqeQOP.99<br
/>
HTML http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-real-deal-on-u.s.-subsidies-fossils-72b-renewable-energys-12b<br
/>
solar 2.3, wind 12B, ethanol 17B, 70B fossils. nukes 120B$
Yes, turns out peaking and reserve generators were fist
installed because "baseload" nuclear and coal cannot throttle,
and thus NEED BACKUP POWER. At least as much as solar and wind.
What a joke, huh?
Do you have a link for the injected Pu?
Then I have to ask the question. Did we really have a lot of
choices back then? Fossils would have been worse in some ways. I
agree, NOW it's no contest. :solar, wind backed by waste to
fuels beats the daylights out of nuclear of fossils, but it
wasn't always so.
Don't stop commenting, but you are pushing the wonderful lack
of limits renewableworld has given us. Try for efficiency of
comment.[/quote]
A. G. Gelbert
July 2, 2014
Brian,
Thank you for your serious, logical and fact based response.
I'll try to shorten my comments in the future. The formatting
here is a little crazy. If I correct some grammar, everything
gets spread out with umpteen spaces and I have to painstakingly
go back and reduce the spaces. I'll try to get my grammar right
the first time.
Of course, since the nukers think I can't do "basic math", they
won't be surprised that I make grammatical errors.
For them I have but one thing to say about their "position" and
why they cling to it:
They are part of corruptus in extremis cui prodest scelus is
fecit tag team.
Prison is too good for them.
About the 1950's. Here's the straight skinny. The USA went nuts
in the 1930s and 40s building hydroelectric facilities. Our
electrical grid was about 35 to 40% powered by DAMS! We have yet
to achieve those percentages again in renewable energy (yes, I
know the grid is MUCH bigger now). The nukes put the dams on the
back burner. That was a bad mistake. We had choices. We weren't
allowed to make them; the big boyz made them without consulting
us, period.
Reactor grade plutonium has way to high a percentage of Pu-240
(> 18%). It's HARD to get it below 7% for weapons grade. A
special purpose reactor, as far as I know from what I read, is
used for that because you just can't go around shutting down
large nukes at exactly 9 or ten weeks after you cooked some fuel
rods in them to harvest the low pu240 weapons grade stuff. It
makes even less economic sense than the nuclear power plant
does!
But I don't know my "maths" according to the nukers so I'll have
to go home and eat a uranium sandwich or something!
Thanks for signing the petition!
I'll get back to you on the links. I'm tied up with some legal
eagle stuff right now. Take care.
#Post#: 1810--------------------------------------------------
Re: No We NEVER Needed LWR Nuclear Power Plants to Make Nuclear
Weapons
By: AGelbert Date: September 4, 2014, 1:54 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
1955: Why the US Chose Nuclear Energy Over Solar
This amazing excerpt from the book, Let It Shine: The 6000-Year
Story of Solar Energy, provides fascinating context to energy
choices the US made in the 1950s. It was a pivotal moment for
the advent of solar energy, but the US supported nuclear
instead.
What's most interesting is all-out backing the US government
gave the nuclear energy industry to get it off the ground.
Similar histories are likely written about government support
for oil and gas when they first emerged. Renewable energy
industries have had no such support - infinitesimal by
comparison. It's a testament to pioneers in the solar and wind
industries and a handful of supportive governments that they are
nearing grid parity today.
Prelude to the Embargo
For almost three decades after the end of WWII, the US had few
problems with its energy supply. Its industry, commerce, and
homes all had ready access to oil and gas from both domestic and
foreign sources. Most of the oil was close to the surface, easy
to tap, and economical to extract. Foreign governments sold
their oil to American companies at extremely low prices, and US
government subsidies also helped to keep prices low and profits
high. Natural gas prices were also low and enjoyed the same tax
advantages as oil.
Corporate spokespeople assured the public that this rosy
situation would continue almost indefinitely. With fuel
apparently so abundant and cheap, electric companies expanded to
meet demand. Liberal government policies made it easy to procure
capital to build larger and more efficient power plants.
Utilities encouraged greater consumption because the costs of
building new plants and installing electric lines could be
recovered more easily if customers used more energy.
"Once you had the lines in, you hoped people would use as much
electricity as possible," a utility executive remarked. "You
wanted to get as much return on your investment as you could."
Gas companies took a similar approach - "if you sell more you
make more."
They promoted consumption through advertising campaigns and
preferential rate structures. It worked as families rushed to
buy electric and gas-powered appliances. The growing affluence
and postwar baby boom pushed electricity generation up over 500%
between 1945-1968, and gas production almost tripled from 6-16
trillion cubic feet during those years. US fuel consumption more
than doubled.
Enter Solar
The frenetic pace at which America was gobbling up its energy
resources alarmed only a few farsighted individuals. Eric
Hodgins, editor of Fortune, called the careless burning of coal,
oil and gas a terrible state of affairs, enough to "horrify even
the most complaisant in the world of finance."
Writing in 1953, he warned that "we live on a capital
dissipation basis. We can keep this up for another 25 years
before we begin to find ourselves in deepening trouble." But
such warnings were treated with derision or ignored because too
much money was being made on energy sales.
A few scientists and engineers took the same dim view and sought
an alternative to a fuel crisis they saw as inevitable. In 1955,
they founded the Association for Applied Solar Energy and held a
World Symposium in Phoenix, Arizona. Delegates from around the
world attended, presenting research and exhibiting solar
devices.
Israel displayed its commercial solar water heaters, and
representatives from Australia and Japan discussed their
nations' increasing use of the sun. To many, the symposium
represented the dawn of a new solar age, but the careless
confidence of energy-rich America squelched that hope here.
Solar energy received virtually no support in the ensuing years,
and by 1963 the association found itself bankrupt.
The governments of Israel, Australia and Japan deliberately
aided the solar industry, but the US Congress and White House
sat on the sidelines. True, as early as 1952 the President's
Materials Commission, appointed by Harry Truman, came out with a
report, Resources for Freedom, predicting that America and its
allies would be short on fossil fuels by 1975. It urged that
solar energy be developed as a replacement.
"Efforts made to date to harness solar energy are
infinitesimal," the commission chided, despite the fact that the
"US could make an immense contribution to the welfare of the
free world" by exploiting this inexhaustible supply. They
predicted that, given the will to go solar, there could be 13
million solar-heated homes by the mid-1970s.
Atoms For Peace
The Commission advocated for a 50-50 split for nuclear and solar
contributions to America's energy future, but the US government
lavished billions on atomic power research while spending a
pittance on solar. International cold war politics more than
technological advantages accounted for the difference.
The Soviet's growing military might and possibility of nuclear
warfare dominated. Rather than scare Americans, President
Eisenhower decided to give nuclear weapons a happy face by
introducing the peaceful atom.
At the United Nations in 1953, Eisenhower assured the world body
of US determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma -
"to find the way the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not
be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to life." When he
proposed the peaceful use of the atom "to apply atomic energy to
the needs of agriculture and medicine ... and to provide
abundant electrical energy in power-starved areas of the world"
- everyone sprang up and applauded and kept on cheering.
Someone called Eisenhower's plan "Atoms for Peace" and the
phrase stuck. Selling the peaceful atom as the world's future
energy source suddenly became America's number one priority.
HTML http://miriamdobson.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/stamp.png
Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, making available
at no cost to the industry "the knowledge acquired by 14 years
and $10 billion worth of government research." In this act, the
government pledged to undertake for the private sector "a
program of conducting, assisting, and fostering research and
development to encourage maximum scientific and industrial
progress."
In other words, the government paid all the expenses and took
all the risks for the nascent nuclear energy industry. There was
no parallel "Solar Energy Act.
People from every national and political inclination heralded
the arrival of the atomic age, the "third great epoch in human
history." A few people though had second thoughts.
Nobel prize-winning chemist Dr. Glenn Seaborg, who later headed
the Atomic Energy Commission, argued that the difficulty of
finding sites for disposal of dangerous radioactive waste would
severely hamper development. Worse, experts agreed that the
owners of atomic power plants could quickly convert their
fissionable material to build bombs. Even members of the
Eisenhower administration admitted having "some unhappy second
thoughts - that 'atoms for peace' could turn into 'atom bombs
for all.' The specter of nations in the underdeveloped world
arming themselves atomically was "terrifying."
What About Solar?
Dr. James Conant, the American scientist who first oversaw the
making of America's first nuclear weapons, agreed that nuclear
power was too dangerous and expensive. He urged the nation to
instead create a program like the Manhattan Project for the
development of solar energy.
The NY Times also suggested the government should "transfer some
of its interest in nuclear to solar." But the attitude of
Washington and the private sector mirrored that of a nation
hypnotized by seemingly limitless supplies of cheap fossil fuel
and by the almost magical aura surrounding nuclear energy.
Life Magazine put it aptly in an article, "The Sun: Prophets
Study Rays for Far-Off Needs." A few farsighted scientists are
dreaming of ways to save the US when coal, oil, gas and uranium
run out. That may be 200-1000 years away, the article said.
George Russler, chief staff engineer at the
Minneapolis-Honeywell Research Center, suggested that solar
energy could better tackle the growing need to replace oil by
providing heat for houses and office buildings. He pointed out
that the low-temperature heat required "ideally matches the
low-grade heat from the simplest and most efficient solar energy
collectors."
This was the perfect way to start putting solar to widespread
use and ameliorating the ominous circumstance that the number of
new oil discoveries in the US had fallen every year after 1953,
while reliance on imported oil kept growing. In fact, in 1967,
for the first time in the nation's history, crude oil reserves
declined.
And renowned oil engineer Marion King Hubbert predicted in 1956
that American petroleum production would peak between the late
1960s and early 1970s. Most in the oil industry ridiculed his
work, but in 1970 the laughing ceased. His prediction had come
to pass.
++++
This is an excerpt from an article in the May/June issue of
Solar Today.
John Perlin, author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of
Solar Energy (2013) is an analyst in the Department of Physics
and Director for implementation of solar and energy efficiency
at University of California/ Santa Barbara. He writes and
lectures widely on the history of energy, solar in particular.
Check out his website:
HTML http://john-perlin.com/
HTML http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.feature/id/1924
Agelbert Comment:
Great article!
But I would like to add a few salient details of the history not
mentioned in it.
1) The cost of the Manhattan Project was far more than 10
Billion dollars. Despite that fact, we-the-people were NEVER
given a credit on privatized for profit nuclear power. We paid
for the development, we ensured the power plants from radiation
accidents and we paid to make utility investors an ARTIFICIAL
profit. This is an obscenity.
2) Nuclear power plants were TOTALLY unnecessary for nuclear
medicine because a cyclotron can make all the short lived
isotopes needed for tracers in nuclear medicine. Eisenhower (and
General Groves) KNEW that. The UN speech was hype.
3)Most of our bombs DID NOT come from commercial nuclear
reactors because, by their very design, they had too much
"product" of a very unstable isotope of Plutonium that must be
kept to a very low percentage in order for the material to be
considered "bomb grade" plutonium. You have to shut the plant
down a few weeks after a start up and harvest the product at
exactly the right time. That is not feasible (cold shut downs
and starts every few weeks for a commercial nuclear power
plant). SPECIALIZED nuclear reactors were built specifically to
make the bomb grade plutonium. We-the-people paid for them too!
BUT, we were ALLOWED to believe nuclear power plants were a huge
risk to underdeveloped countries and a resource to be cherished
and protected because of the "Bomb product potential". It was a
LIE. We-the-people actually preserved MORE profit for the
investors by allowing the U.S. Government to provide MORE
"protection" in the form of SECRECY in the private sector of
nuclear power. A club was created. We-the-people paid for it
including funding university nuclear physics departments and
keeping the cloak of secrecy under the guise of "national
security" (NOT! - it was REALLY nuclear club JOB SECURITY).
4)With this backing, all sorts of pollution and mendacity about
accidents and leaks and cancer clusters and epidemiological
studies proving children near power plants had higher cancer
rates were keep from we-the-people. The profits just keep coming
in for the investors and rampant externalized costs (that would
make the coal mining industry blush!) from uranium mining
cancers to sloppy nuclear waste "disposal" in the oceans, etc.
were ALL kept out of the public view.
In other words, the "national security" monicker was used to
defraud the American public of billions of dollars for a
technology that has NEVER been profitable when all the
environment AND energy costs of extraction to disposal are
ACTUALLY accounted for.
Full details at the link below:
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/nuke-puke/no-we-never-needed-lwr-nuclear-power-plants-to-make-nuclear-weapons/
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