A bottle discarded at a waste site in the US contains the oldest sample of bomb-grade plutonium made in a nuclear reactor, scientists say. The sample dates to 1944 and is a relic from the infancy of the US nuclear weapons programme.
The researchers have described their study as “nuclear archaeology”. The bottle in question was discovered in a burial trench at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, north-western US.
The sample produced at the Hanford site was used in Trinity – the world’s first nuclear weapon test – on 16 July 1945 and in the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on 10 August 1945.
The Hanford site is now the focus of a massive environmental cleanup effort due to high levels of radioactive waste that remain at the site.
The types of forensic techniques used in the study are also vital for determining the sources, origins and routes of smuggled radioactive materials.
Finds like this never surprise me. They need a few more sharp folks working around the national labs who recognize the need for historic record-keeping – including samples like this.
One atom of Plutonium in the body is so energetic in decay particles, it will blast DNA to hell. There is no such thing as an acceptable level of Plutonium.
When do they start at Oak Ridge?
I first read about this story in New Scientist. They have a few more pictures as well as a more detailed article.
http://www.livescience.com/history/090227-nuclear-plutonium.html
#1 is wrong. There is much misinformation out there about plutonium and nuclear energy in general. Below is a link to some accurate information. Look at the section on toxicity.
http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2029280
Over 20 people were contaminated with plutonium during the Manhattan Project and their medical histories were later followed. In 1979, over 30 years after the war, only two of those 26 people had died – one from a heart attack, and another from a traffic accident. Plutonium is toxic, no doubt, but not as toxic as is often believed.
During the Manhattan Project, they were trying to win the war. Nuclear science and engineering were quite new. In retrospect, they should have been more careful in handling these substances. However, it is not surprising some artifacts like this have been found.
#1:
Certainly plutonium is dangerous, but please be more precise.
One atom of plutonium if split will wreak havoc on EXACTLY how many DNA strands?
A. 1
B. 2
C. 6
D. A bazillion?
Where’s the proof of the precision of your statement?
From Wikipedia:
“If you’re extremely unlucky, one atom of plutonium, shooting off its alpha particle directly into your lung tissue, might cause cancer, which might kill you. But you’re in the same position with one atom of strontium-90 in your bone, tossing off a beta particle. If you’re unlucky, you’ll wind up dead. In that sense, any radioactive toxin has a huge potential to kill, in single atom quantities. But some radioactive materials don’t have highly energetic emissions, or don’t go into sensitive tissues so readily, so there is a hierarchy of risk.”
A close relative of mine machined the uranium and plutonium for the first bombs at Los Alamos with minimal protection. He just turned 90. His DNA seems to be ok.
# 7 cmon said, A close relative of mine …”
Yes, but the eco-nuts will do or say anything to keep us from using cheap nuke power. They’d rather tax energy so highly that expensive solar and what not, become “affordable”…
And Obama’s Chu has just agreed to shut down Yucca Mountain. Nuts!
#9 How else are you going to “sell” non-viable “green” alternative energy if you don’t knock out competing tech?
Remember the German Chancellor who shut down the nuke power plants there then, retired to work go for Gazprom? ROFL
Oh, and make sure to punish the energy companies with higher taxes, too, to make carbon based fuels more expensive and less abundant. But it’s ok, we’ll just plug in our cars, there’s lots of electricity, right? Oh, wait, 20% of electricity is from nukes, and 70% of emission free electricity is nuclear…what? Solar and wind are less than 1%? What’s the other 30% emission free electricity? Hydro? Next we’ll have to blow up the dams to save the salmon (they were serious about that in Washington state btw). Oh well, there’s loads of coal that will generate tons of carbon tax revenue…That’s the ticket!
Do you nutballs always spend the entire day talking to each other off-topic?
#12, only when they feed the troll.
Plutonium takes about 50k years (drunken estimate) to decompose…wont be hard to find…it is called the newclear engery big lie….it is safe and cheap as long as you exclude storing the waste for 50,000 years
I’m hungry 😀
# 14 jcj7161 said, “it is safe and cheap as long as you exclude storing the waste for 50,000 years”
Dump it in a subduction zone or use it in a breeder reactor.