Missing. 600 pounds of Plutonium

[Nordmadr]

LOS ALAMOS
Plutonium could be missing from lab
600-plus pounds unaccounted for, activist group says


Enough plutonium to make dozens of nuclear bombs hasn't been accounted for at the UC-run Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and may be missing, an activist group says in a new report.

There is no evidence that the weapons-grade plutonium has been stolen or diverted for illegal purposes, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research said. However, the amount of unaccounted-for plutonium -- more than 600 pounds, and possibly several times that -- is so great that it raises "a vast security issue," the group said in a report to be made public today.

The institute, which is based in Takoma Park, Md., says it compared data from five publicly available reports and documents issued by the U.S. Energy Department and Los Alamos from 1996 to 2004 and found inconsistencies in them. It says the records aren't clear on what the lab did with the plutonium, a byproduct of nuclear bomb research at Los Alamos.

A spokesman for UC, which manages the national laboratories at Los Alamos and Livermore for the Energy Department, did not address the report's specifics but said the New Mexico lab tracks nuclear material "to a minute quantity."


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/30/BAGGQFVT7J1.DTL

Olaf

[Maggie_May]

1. I know that this is not funny but had to

Check under Dick's bed.

[Nordmadr]

2. One of the possible explanations:

"The report says there are several possible explanations for what happened to the plutonium. They include:

-- It was discarded in unsafe amounts in landfills at the Los Alamos lab. It is legal to discard weapons-grade plutonium in landfills, one of which is 40 feet deep, as long as the substance is sufficiently diluted. However, if a landfill holds too much plutonium, the material can eventually contaminate the environment -- for example by leeching into groundwater or being absorbed by the roots of plants -- study co-author Arjun Makhijani said in an interview".


I was not aware that PLUTONIUM could be disposed of in a landfill!!

Good to see we are keeping good track of this stuff, and that we are making sure it doesn't harm the environment or anything either.


Olaf

[zanne]

3. How do you misplace 600 pounds of plutonium? nt

[Deja Q]

4. How do you misspend $8 trillion dollars?

The same answer works for both questions.

(because you want terrorists to destroy you - that's my answer.)

[jimshoes]

6. Great Scott!!!

Paging Dr. Emmet Brown!

[Julius Civitatus]

7. Exactly. It's the most radioactive and damaging element known to man

Actually, it's not found in nature but artificially created by humans (if my memories of high-school chemistry are still correct), and happens to bet he most radioactive and dangerous element known to man.

Plutonium doesn't just "disappear" from a lab. The act of moving, handling and manipulating plutonium is quite cumbersome because of its very dangerous nature. Nobody can just walk out of a lab with some plutonium on his pocket, much less 600 freakin' pounds.

This should be a SCANDAL!

[hunter]

21. I dunno...

But I wish Lockheed Martin and the University of Texas would quit masturbating about it.

[AspenRose]

35. Boy, that's an understatement....

eom

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bahrbearian]

8. Right how were they capable of processing that amount to make

200 warheads and bombs.

[Ian David]

25. Welcome to DU and enjoy your stay. n/t

[savemefromdumbya]

9. maybe they planted them in Iraq and they lost them?

[Norquist Nemesis]

10. That's what I was thinking. Either that or

the rest of the world is going to have to look at the USA scratching their heads saying: "We KNOW they have them!"

[longship]

11. Plutonium cannot just be moved around like furniture.

These labs have detectors all over the place. I know, I worked at the lab which had the world's largest storage facility of fissionable plutonium. Plutonium *must* be moved in small amounts. Even then, detectors would see its movement. The smallest trace of Pu is tracked and accounted for.

Consider that this information is the product of public documents. I don't think that the government has any obligation to release information on the movement of Pu to the public. It certainly is not in the public's interest to do so. On top of this, it is virtually impossible to lose 600 lbs of the stuff. I suggest that the public documents tell an incomplete story. Making assumptions based on incomplete evidence is dangerous.

[AspenRose]

16. Thank you for your common sense, non-alarmist post.

eom

[longship]

17. At Argonne Nat'l Lab...

We had a series of emergency procedures. There were several levels of alarms on the lab site. One particular alarm was just called the "criticality alarm". It meant that somewhere on the site's many acres of laboratories a mass of fissionable product had attained an unplanned or uncontrolled criticality. Our instructions were to run as fast as we could outside and run as fast as we could *upwind*. It was made clear that this was a panic situation.

Nobody could move even the smallest piece of fissionable product without approval. You couldn't even move fissionable material from one side of a room to another without approval. This was strictly enforced. As I posted earlier, detectors were *everywhere* to see to it that the rules were followed.

[triguy46]

12. Hope its not in one pile sitting in a basement...

:nuke:

[thecodewarrior]

13. if some how it was stolen by an arab

from syria or Iran, then it would be on foxnews 24/7 with foxnews alerts to boot.

WMD are only other peoples weapons, our nukes, our anthrax, our depleted uranium are "liberation delivery devices".

[triguy46]

18. My concern is more regarding "critical mass"

isn't there a risk of storage of large quantities of purified stuff kind of self detonating?

[bigbrother05]

14. Looks like it happened over a 40 year period

From reading the article, they talk about reports from the last 9-10 years that cover about four decades of work at Los Alamos. The industry has a term, MUF (material unaccounted for) as a part of their inventory/accounting process to quantify loss of fissile material due to inherent inefficiencies in any manufacturing or handling system. During any inventory period, the amount of MUF is very small for any individual activity, but over the years all those tiny amounts from all the different actions can and will grow.

None of this should make anyone feel much better. There is little comfort in the knowledge that all those folks were doing their dead-level best to control and account for every atom of the stuff for all these years, there is still over 600 lbs of it someplace it shouldn't be.

This is one of the reasons that everyone should be extremely wary of any action to increase nuclear power generation. No matter how conscientious people are, and the folks (engineers and scientists) at weapons labs are some of the most anal people you could ever meet, this stuff is so deadly that even the best lose some of it. Think of how much greater the risk when commercial interests are broadly involved.

For those who may not remember, a large part of the cause of 3 Mile Island was human error compounded by some dubious construction and oversight techniques.

Anyway, guess my point is that without specific evidence, am inclined to not see a vast bomb threat lurking, but the whole business still scares me shitless, which could explain why never entered the industry after getting my Nuc Eng degree.

[AspenRose]

15. The final nail in the UC coffin...if this is legit, they can kiss their

contract hopes goodbye.

"And the University (of California) obviously has a responsibility in this. It should be a grave embarrassment for the university to be sitting on numbers like this and discrepancies like this, and not have resolved them."

Hello University of Texas/Lockheed Martin.

[hunter]

19. Shhhhh.... I have it in my garage.

No, really, I do.

[triguy46]

32. That explains the odd glow from your house...

:yoiks:

[eppur_se_muova]

20. Did they look behind the sofa cushions?

I find a lot of stuff that way. Particularly likely if they made some of the Pu into coins.

[NNN0LHI]

22. Don't tell no one but actually many tons of the stuff is unaccounted for

This has been that case for decades.

Don

[hunter]

23. You can play the anti-nuclear activists like a piano.

Is this thread dead yet? It should be.

All you anti-nuclear activists who are reading this (and I used to be one of you) should take a very close look at what's going on here.

I have no connections to Lawrence Livermore, the University of Texas, or Lockheed Martin, but I do know Lockheed Martin wants this contract real bad.

Go check that out, and then come back here, okay?

[Don Claybrook]

27. I won't be joining in your scavenger hunt

so I guess I'm played more like an out-of-tune piano.

However, I am curious as to why in the world you would switch from an anti- to pro-nuclear stance. Did you decide you just didn't care about the possible consequences? Were you made CEO of some heavily nuclear-invested company? Did you change your mind and decide our government could be trusted with public safety issues? Were you ever an anti-nuclear activist? Is it possible you just don't have a clear grasp of what can happen to people in the case of a nuclear accident?

Whatever your reply, I'm certain it will be interesting.

[hunter]

29. You evade my questions about University of Texas / Lockheed Martin...

But here are my answers:

• I did not switch from an anti- to a pro-nuclear stance. I abandoned the anti-nuclear groups I was working with in the late '70s and early '80s because their politics seemed nearly as pernicious as those of the nuclear industry. Neither side was motivated by the truth or transparency, and both sides had many ulterior motives. Frankly, the anti-nuclear groups I was working with used me to do things they were afraid to do themselves. I will probably never forgive them for that. They put an idealistic young man in danger for a very questionable ideology.
  
  
• Consequences? Which ones? I am a deeply committed anti-war activist, and this includes my opposition to nuclear weapons. But so far as civilian nuclear power schemes go, I believe that coal and oil are a much greater threat to humans and the earth's environment. At this time I fear the level of corruption in the U.S. government is such that the further development of nuclear power would be very risky. I suspect our economy will suffer, and that eventually we will be forced to import new nuclear power technologies from other nations.
  
  
• I have no financial relationships with the nuclear industry.
  
  
• I have a very clear grasp of what can happen to people in nuclear accidents. But I don't believe accidents with radioactive toxins are qualitatively different than any other sort of industrial accident. Many of the very toxic substances commonly spilled by industry have a "half life" of forever. It is disingenuous to examine the waste streams of the nuclear power industry in minute detail, while ignoring the waste streams of, say for example, the coal industry.
  

I hope you find thais "interesting." I do read Personal Messages, and sometimes I respond with further details. Mostly it's a matter of "you show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

I do not believe the management of Los Alamos has been particularly sound, and I don't trust that Lockheed Martin would do better.

[AspenRose]

34. You are absolutely right about UT/Lockheed-Martin

They already have offices set up in Northern New Mexico and the contract award hasn't even been announced yet (it will be VERY soon, which makes me suspect the timing of this story). Their setting up shop is an attempt at positive PR, I guess, even before the chickens have hatched.

On edit: Just as an FYI, Bill Richardson is on record as wanting UC to *keep* the LANL contract, FWIW.

[Rex]

24. "Hey look, no nukes under this table" (guffaw)

Someone search the White House. No doubt these evil bastards are going to use it for a second 911 style distraction.

[Ian David]

26. They used it to get the aliens home from Roswel. n/t

[Rex]

36. I don't doubt that

I'd flee this planet too if given the chance.

[triguy46]

33. Nah, they can't even seem to be able to ask if anyone outs spies...

you can't expect them to ask if anyone has seen 200 pounds of plutonium can you?:crazy:

[Zynx]

28. Strange. The Onion just had a headline about this.

It reads, "Terrorist has no idea what to do with all this plutonium".

[womanofthehills]

30. Los Alamos Radioactive Ants

Radioactive Ants - www.lasg.org/waste/ants.htm

I live in NM and about 5 yrs ago the Albuquerque local paper said in the 40's the scientists at Los Alamos were not aware of how dangerous plutonium was and just burried it in the canyons surrounding Los Alamos. They said the 40's plutonium was different then todays plutonium so when they get plugs out of some of New Mexico lakes off the Rio Grande they can tell it's the 40's plutonium. The article said not to worry as the levels are very low.- O.K. It did say that everytime it rains, the water washes small levels of plutanium through the canyons in Los Alamos and down the Rio Grande. I once spoke to a guy who did toxic cleanup in NM and he said Los Alamos was a mess because they didn't make maps of where they burried the stuff back in the 40's.

The Los Alamos Study Group - link above has lots of info.

[stickdog]

31. Weapons of Massive Dysfunction (nt)

[1932]

37. I think these stories aren't true. They're supposed to make people

want the UofC to lose their contract so that the University of Texas and a consortium of private companies can take over the labs.

About a year ago, bidding was oppened for the management of the project and the UC partnered with a private company to maintain management. The Feds weren't happy so they reopenend bidding and raised the fee the Feds will pay to the team that wins the contract.

Isn't that mad? The point of privatization is that it's supposed to save money, right? But because the UC was the only group willing to do this job at the low contract price, that (tax-payer subsidized) fee was raised to the point that would make more private companies interested in running the project.

So, the real point of government was revealed: to channel great sums of public money into private hands.

[AntiFascist]

38. So Operation US Hiroshima could become a reality with that much missing nt