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plutonium

Kitty Tucker, founder of Supporters of Silkwood, describes how Karen Silkwood's car went off the road in 1974 and she was killed, as Father William Davis, investigator for the Silkwood family, listens during a press conference after the Supreme Court upheld the Silkwood family decision.

The death of Karen Silkwood—and the plutonium economy

By Robert Alvarez | Analysis, Nuclear Risk

Biden’s horse-trading on nuclear technology and fuels is an unprecedented proliferation risk

By Alan J. Kuperman | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Weapons

Canadian reactors that “recycle” plutonium would create more problems than they solve

By Jungmin Kang, M.V. Ramana | Nuclear Energy

Some fuels never learn. US Energy Department returns to costly and risky plutonium separation technologies

By Jungmin Kang, Masafumi Takubo, Frank von Hippel | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Weapons

Idaho National Laboratory’s Fuel Conditioning Facility supports work to demonstrate the technical feasibility of a nuclear recycling technique called pyroprocessing. Photo Credit: Fuel Conditioning Fact Sheet, Idaho National Laboratory.

Why joint US-South Korean research on plutonium separation raises nuclear proliferation danger

By Jungmin Kang, Frank von Hippel | Analysis, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk

How do humans make sense of the bomb? A photo essay.

By Robert Del Tredici, Gordon Edwards | Analysis, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Multimedia, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons

Plutonium pellet. US Energy Department public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

The history of nuclear power’s imagined future: Plutonium’s journey from asset to waste

By William Walker | Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Waste, Nuclear Weapons

AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN. This field of ceramic nose-cones represents, in miniature, all the warheads in the US nuclear arsenal at the height of the Cold War, along with the nuclear submarines, bombers, and ballistic missiles designed to deliver them. Estimates put the warhead count at around 25,000. Denver sculptress Barbara Donachy created this installation to show what such a concentration of nuclear weaponry would look like all in one place. Her display contains 33,561 pieces representing 31,000 warheads, 1,799 ballistic missiles, 324 intercontinental bombers, and 37 nuclear submarines. Amber Waves of Grain installation by Barbara Donachy, Boston Science Museum, Boston, Massachusetts. February 13, 1985. Photograph copyright by Robert Del Tredici, The Atomic Photographers Guild. Used with permission.

Will Canada remain a credible nonproliferation partner?

By Susan O’Donnell, Gordon Edwards | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons, Opinion

An after-picture of the Urakami Tenshudo (Catholic Church) in Nagasaki, which was destroyed in 1945 by the fission of about one kilogram of plutonium. Credit: Public domain image accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

Plutonium programs in East Asia and Idaho will challenge the Biden administration

By Frank von Hippel | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Weapons

Bill Gates in October 2018, at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium to promote health and clean-energy Initiatives. Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

Bill Gates’ bad bet on plutonium-fueled reactors

By Frank von Hippel | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Weapons

Plutonium pellet. US Energy Department public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

For the NPT to work, plutonium has to go

By Victor Gilinsky, Henry Sokolski | Analysis, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Opinion

The long-term problem of “peaceful” plutonium

By Robert Alvarez | Nuclear Risk