U.S. struggles to find way to get rid of plutonium

["ERIC GOLDIN" <goldinem@songs.sce.com>]

Radsafers,  just to let you know there is still the fear factor in some 
reporting on plutonium, the article below is from a news service (credited at 
the bottom).  Apologies for the length, but check out the lead-in sentence:
Eric Goldin
goldinem@songs.sce.com

Subject: U.S. struggles to find way to get rid of plutonium

NEW YORK _ It sounds like a script for an overheated sci-fi thriller:

The U.S. government struggles to find a way to dispose of 52 tons of
plutonium, the deadliest material known to man.

After 24,000 years, only half of it will have decayed. But when it
decays, it turns into uranium 235, which is almost as lethal.

''The point is, you can never get rid of it,'' said Paul Levanthal,
president of the Nuclear Control Institute. ''Welcome to the nuclear
industry.''

The U.S. Department of Energy announced plans last week to dispose of
its mountain of surplus plutonium, the residue of nuclear disarmament.

DOE's plan is to turn two-thirds of the plutonium into mix-oxide, or MOX,
an expensive fuel for nuclear reactors.

Critics say that such a scenario would create a security nightmare since
only 15 pounds of plutonium is needed to make a nuclear bomb.

''This is when it's in the most vulnerable form to theft,'' Levanthal
said. ''A skillful person would know how to divert enough to make a bomb
without sounding an alarm.''

Levanthal also marveled over the security precautions needed to
guarantee the plutonium's safety during collection, transportation and
storage.

''You would have to worry about hijackings, accidents. ... If you bury
it deep in the Earth, you don't have to worry about it,'' Levanthal
said.

Burying it, which DOE wants to do with the remaining one-third of the
tonnage, involves a process called vitrification, mixing the plutonium
with radioactive waste, fusing it with glass, and sinking it far out of
sight.

But critics fear that after a thousand years or so, the glass could
break down, the plutonium could accumulate, reach critical mass and set
off a nuclear chain reaction.

There are more immediate dangers. The element is so dangerous that
plutonium shavings have been known to spontaneously burst into flame.

Some of the most contaminated concentrations of plutonium are sealed in
so-called ''infinity rooms'' at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology
Site in Colorado.

The concrete bunkers built to contain the poison have already developed
cracks, and evidence of leaks has been measured in the adjacent land.

Nevertheless, several cities are vying for the chance to handle either
the vitrification or the MOX conversion process.

Amarillo, Texas, is home to the Pantex plant, one of five that
disassembles nuclear weapons. Up to 350 jobs at the plant are expected
to be cut this spring as the project winds down.

Getting the MOX plant would mean 600 to 1,600 jobs, according to Bob
Juba of the Amarillo Economic Development Corp.

He says the danger from plutonium is overstated.

''There is a lack of knowledge in most of society about this that scares
people. They picture this as green oozing gas, and it's not like that,''
Juba said.

''Probably X-ray technicians get more radiation than the people who work
at Pantex,'' he said.

X X X

(c) 1996, New York Daily News. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.

AP-NY-12-14-96 1938EST
    -0-
By Mark Mooney
The New York Daily News

[Sun Dec 15 03:57:26 1996 - 349g3152]