PLUTONIUM IS FATAL FOREVER.
AND NO REMEDY FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS
AND NO REMEDY FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS
80 YEARS AGO, IN THE SPRING OF 1943, THE WW2 MANHATTAN PROJECT BEGAN TO DESIGN, BUILD AND TEST THE FIRST ATOMIC WEAPONS IN HUMAN HISTORY.
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In August 1945, they virtually obliterated two Japanese cities, killing as many as 200,000, bestowing horrific burns and radiation poisoning, then bereavement and life-long nightmares on tens of thousands of hibakusha who survived.
The bombs were incomprehensively terrifying. The one dropped above Hiroshima, code-named Little Boy, contained 64 kilograms of a fissile element called U 235. But it was crude by modern standards – only a mere 600 grams fully fissioned. The weight of a butterfly. Yet that produced an explosive force equal to 15,000 tons of TNT. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days later was more complex and efficient. It contained only 6.4 kilograms of another fissile element, Plutonium 239, of which about 900 grams fully fissioned. That is equal to the weight of a large caterpillar. Yet that produced over 20 kilotons (20 tons of TNT equivalent) of explosive force. We might be tempted to think of this as ancient history, or a non-Canadian matter, or irrelevant to the climate crisis now imperilling our planet. But the opposite is true, because there are now some 13,000 nuclear weapons aimed at countless targets on our shared Earth. Most are far more powerful than those used against Japan, use less uranium and plutonium, and can be delivered from astonishing distances with diabolical accuracy. Moreover, a single missile can deliver ten or fifteen warheads programmed to hit different targets. For these, plutonium is by far the favourite fissile component. |
Remember the 900 grams that destroyed Nagasaki? Currently, the worlds 410 civilian nuclear power plants – regardless of make, model, or country of origin – collectively create 70 tonnes of plutonium each year as part of the uranium fission process.
That global reactor fleet accounts for only 4 per cent of world energy production. Doubling that to 8 per cent would mean building another 410 reactors, and doubling annual plutonium production to 140 tons per year. Plutonium, once created, has an immutable half-life of 24,000 years. Put another way, due to laws of physics, it will take 24 centuries for it to lose half its atomic mass, and half its latent lethality. But only half. Even then, the plutonium made tomorrow or next year or next decade would haunt generations for effectively forever. This is why nuclear power is no remedy to the climate crisis. At best, it might fractionally reduce greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously accelerating plutonium production and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Replacing carbon atoms with plutonium and uranium is a zero-sum game for world security and the future of our planet. The genuine alternative is renewable power, efficiency, battery storage, and green hydrogen. (see Green Ascent chapter on this site) Please support the campaign to ban all future uses of plutonium in Canada, or for export. |
