U.S. Plant to Recycle Nuclear Bombs
The International Herald Tribune reports that Aiken, South Carolina will be the home of a new plant to recycle plutonium from nuclear weapons into energy for power reactors. The plant will cost $4.8 billion to build and $100 million per year to run, and although it will reduce the amount of plutonium it will also create nuclear waste.
“Ultimately, the plant here, as well as the plants that Moscow wants to build, could help pave the way for more use of plutonium in civil commerce. The Russians, who see the plutonium as an asset, want to use it in a new reactor that could be set up to consume plutonium faster than it creates it or that could be set up to ‘breed,’ making more material than it consumes.”
Aiken’s most historical event before this was the death of a former Speaker of the House; the town’s population is just over 25,000. The plant is supposed to begin producing reactor fuel in 2016. For more information on energy, visit Earth 911’s Energy page.
