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Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. ... a safe was discovered during excavations of a burial trench at the Hanford nuclear site ...
Plutonium recovered from LWR spent fuel, while not weapons grade, can be used to produce nuclear weapons at all levels of sophistication, [25] though in simple designs it may produce only a fizzle yield. [26] Weapons made with reactor-grade plutonium would require special cooling to keep them in storage and ready for use. [27]
Disposal of plutonium and other high-level wastes is a more difficult problem that continues to be a subject of intense debate. As an example, plutonium‑239 has a half-life of 24,100 years, and a decay of ten half-lives is required before a sample is considered to cease its radioactivity.
Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy contamination in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons. A ...
The government says it will dispose of its 140 tonnes of radioactive plutonium - currently stored at a secure facility at Sellafield in Cumbria. The UK has the world's largest stockpile of the ...
Civilian nuclear power was misdirection away from the real agenda of building nuclear power plants, which was to help supply the nuclear weapons complex, producing enriched plutonium as feedstocks ...
The pits of the first nuclear weapons were solid, with an urchin neutron initiator in their center. The Gadget and Fat Man used pits made of 6.2 kg of solid hot pressed plutonium-gallium alloy (at 400 °C and 200 MPa in steel dies – 750 °F and 29,000 psi) half-spheres of 9.2 cm (3.6 in) diameter, with a 2.5 cm (1 in) internal cavity for the initiator.
One of four example estimates of the plutonium (Pu-239) plume from the 1957 fire at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. The Rocky Flats Plant, a former United States nuclear weapons production facility located about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Denver, caused radioactive (primarily plutonium, americium, and uranium) contamination within and outside its boundaries. [1]