From: TKeske@Comcast.net   
      
   Woke up this morning, and first thing to enter   
   my head was a realization that I misstated the   
   amount of global plutonium, probably mixing   
   tons with pounds.   Sigh... was looking right at   
   the correct figure, and copying, it, too.   
      
   Correct figure is 240 metric tons- not as bad,   
   but nothing to feel good about, either.  Point   
   is the same- too much to track easily.   
      
   I swear that these realizations come like an   
   message, out of the blue.  Once I told   
   a co-worker (joking) that I could hear him thinking   
   that I had made a typographical error.  He said,   
   (joking), "You are scaring me".   
      
   Truth was, I don't think that either one of us   
   was quite joking.   
      
   Tom Keske   
   ==========================================   
      
      
   NUCLEAR PLANT SAFETY, Part 2   
      
      
   I had tried to be open-minded about nuclear power, to give   
   it a fair chance, and not to be dogmatic in pro-environmental   
   assumptions.   Really, I had.   
      
   I had read how newer designs, such as those being   
   built in China, were safer, more efficient,   
   almost impossible for terrorists to cause any problems.   
      
   When I looked into it a bit more, listening to both sides,   
   I realized that the future of the energy industry was going   
   to find itself with  choices of evils, between the   
   proverbial rock and hard place.  You do not quite get the   
   full picture by listening either to the nuclear industry's side   
   of the story, or the environmentalist's.   You need to put   
   both halves of the story together, in order to realize some   
   things that you might have preferred not to know.   
      
   Many people might imagine that nuclear power is virtually   
   unlimited, simply dangerous.    Dangerous, it is, but one of   
   the unpleasant surprises is to find that it is not really   
   limitless- at least, not in its current form.  There is a limited   
   amount of uranium in the world, just as there is a limited   
   amount of oil or coal.    Also, the way that nuclear plants   
   have operated, until now, has been extremely inefficient.   
   It would use up the available uranium resources of the world   
   in much too short of a time.   
      
   That is why DOE officials want to "reprocess" spent   
   reactor fuel- taking the waste and trying to make more   
   reactor fuel out of it.   
      
   As the environmentalist side tells the story, the   
   term "reprocessing" tends to be a kind of propaganda.   
   It sounds like "recycling", like a good thing for the   
   environment.  It also seems to be in the same vein as   
   fuel efficiency for cars- making much better use of   
   of resources.   
      
   Reprocessing has environmental problems of its own-   
   producing radioactive gases and using processes that   
   involve volatile materials, which could make handling   
   of waste more dangerous.   The worst problem though,   
   has to do with plutonium.   
      
   U.S. nuclear power plants produce plutonium as a byproduct,   
   but the plutonium currently would be difficult for   
   terrorists to use, because it is bound up with   
   highly radioactive materials that make its handling   
   very difficult.   
      
   It would only take about 10 - 15 pounds of plutonium   
   to a make a Nagaski-style bomb.   Design of crude   
   nuclear weapons is not as difficult as obtaining the   
   weapons-grade material.   
      
   Pure plutonium is *not* highly radioactive and is   
   much easier for terrorists to handle.   Because it is   
   the premium bomb-making material, there might be   
   a tendency for the public to imagine that it is highly   
   radioactive, but unfortunately, it is not.  Usually,   
   we think of radioactivity as "bad", but when the   
   issue is ease of handling for terrorists, then   
   radioactivity can be "good".   
      
   There are currently about a 240 metric tons   
   plutonium around the world, of which   
   about 10 tons are being bought and sold, and   
   changing hands, every year.   That is a huge amount   
   to monitor globally, if you must make sure that not even   
   10 pounds ever escapes, for even a few hours.   There have   
   been cases in the past where plutonium was unaccounted for,   
   for *months*, much less hours.   
      
   The DOE plan would use chemical processes to   
   extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel, in order   
   to make new reactor fuel.   This would be creating   
   new plutonium, to compound the problem of keeping   
   it out of the hands of terrorists.   
      
   The public might have a notion that what is needed   
   is simply to guard plutonium, with utmost of care,   
   as you would guard, say, the Hope Diamond.   
      
   Thinking about this analogy can illustrate why that   
   philosophy is logistically impossible.   
      
   How would you guard the Hope Diamond?  You could   
   have maybe a camera, a locked room, and armed guards   
   to keep an eye on it.  If you wanted to check, personally,   
   on the state of security, you could call the armed guards   
   and ask them, or check the cameras.  There it is, safely   
   in plain sight -  the Hope Diamond.  Still there.   
      
   Fortunately, you do not have to contend with a quarter   
   of a millions tons of Hope Diamonds.  Tracking plutonium   
   is a bit more like tracking a large driveway full of   
   gravel, making sure no one picked up a pebble, put   
   it in their pocket, and walked off.   
      
   You have your driveway cordoned off, and have   
   cameras and guards.  But who monitors the cameras?   
   What if your guards want to make a quick $10 million   
   by selling a pebble from the driveway?   In any security   
   system, no  matter how many computers, or cameras,   
   or devices, there are still ultimately human beings at some   
    point, who need to be trusted, to check the security,   
   to monitor and maintain the devices.   
      
   If you cannot trust every human being in your Security   
   department, how do you personally verify?   You can   
   instruct the crew: Count every pebble, weigh every pebble   
   of gravel in the driveway and report if there are any changes   
   in total weight, or in pebble count.   
      
   Then, you can try to repeat that process, once per hour.   
      
   Probably, recounting and reweighing all the gravel in   
   driveway would take longer than the time window for   
   the  terrorists to deliver their bomb to an urban center.   
      
   That is the practical, common-sense reality behind the   
   logistics, why guarding plutonium is not like guarding   
   the Hope Diamond.   
      
   Environmentalists will tell you about the plutonium/terrorist   
   problem with reprocessing of reactor fuel.  What they do   
   not make as clear is that if you do *not* do this, you have   
   another problem- a nuclear industry that is too inefficient   
   to be a replacement of fossil fuels.   
      
   One has to marvel at this ingenious cruelty, from Above,   
    to the human race.  We *can* have adequate energy.   
   Just one catch.   
      
   We cannot have any human beings who have such hate, or   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)