Nuclear Energy

The Nuclear Weapons Clean up

"If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not

the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them.

These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly

killed every last inhabitant of Persia."( Rezendes, V. S.) Since its first conception Nuclear weapons have proven that they are the most destructive technology ever developed. From the first day fission was discovered in 1938, the problem of controlling this new technology at the time has been of central importance to the human race, maybe even our very own survival depends on it.

When this new technology was discovered it was like something out of a very scary science fiction novel. "The world in which this discovery was made was - convulsed by war, paranoia, and totalitarian cruelty - made the translation of theoretical possibility into actuality inevitable." (Schwartz, Stephen) We as the human race have been very fortunate. The world has been fortunate in the extreme that their only role so far has been to close the worst chapter in the history of war, instead of opening a new one. To open a new chapter would be like opening Pandora's Box.

It's known throughout history that mankind has managed to create things through science the helps us in our every day lives and then there are those things in which we create that can destroy ourselves. There's no questioning the fact that the development of nuclear weapons has been one application of nuclear science that has had without a doubt a significant global influence. Following their own scientific studies and experimentation of fission products of uranium Hahn and Strassmann began their progress of a uranium fission weapons in 1938 which later became possible for other nuclear scientists. It was Albert Einstein who signed a letter to Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States, and alerted him to the potential development of a nuclear weapon. Thus began the Manhattan Project, resulting in production of the first nuclear weapons.

In 1945, a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, while another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The unimaginable destruction that was produced by two nuclear devices changed the face of warfare and the world forever. Not only did these two explosions end the most destructive war in history, but whoever possessed these weapons of mass destruction seemed invincible to any enemy that posed a threat.

Just what has the nuclear legacy left us with? To start, nuclear detonations are the most devastating part of the weapons of mass destruction. To make this point very clear one only needs only to recall the pictures from Hiroshima or the international anger over the accidental but devastating radiation release from the Chernobyl power plant. The contamination from Chernobyl was significantly larger than would have been expected from a nuclear detonation of about 20 kT at ground level, but was comparable in extent to what might result from a "small" nuclear war in which a dozen or so weapons of nominal yield were exploded at altitudes intended to maximize blast damage.

A nuclear detonation creates a severe environment including blast, thermal pulse, neutrons, x- and gamma-rays, radiation, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), and ionization of the upper atmosphere. Depending upon the environment in which the nuclear device is detonated, blast effects are manifested as ground shock, water shock, "blueout," (May, John.) cratering, and large amounts of dust and radioactive fallout. All pose problems for the survival of friendly systems and can lead to the destruction or neutralization of hostile assets.

During the last half-century we have embraced the power of the atom as an instrument of military technology and a purported energy dependency that has created a very dangerous environmental burden in the form of contaminated air, land, and water, and huge quantities of long-lived radioactive wastes. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has conservatively estimated that the federal government will be required to spend $230 billion over the next 75 years to "clean up" the existing mess. Yet a current DOE planning document indicates that more wastes will be generated by nuclear weapons related activities over the next two decades than from cleanup of past activities. This new environmental assault is emerging while efforts to identify and disclose the public health consequences of past nuclear weapons activities are only beginning.

In coming years, thousands of communities across the country will be affected by decisions to build new nuclear weapons research and production facilities, decommission nuclear power plants, establish nuclear waste storage sites, transport spent nuclear fuel, and clean up hundreds of sites. In the densely populated San Francisco Bay area, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) nuclear weapons related activities continue to produce toxic and radioactive waste, despite unanswered questions concerning how much past contamination has reached the surrounding environment. DOE has also begun to receive spent nuclear fuel from foreign research reactors at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, then shipping it by train through California, Nevada and Utah, to Idaho, for "temporary" storage. There is no known safe way to "dispose" of this deadly, long-lived radioactive waste.

After the cold war the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) faces the most monumental environmental restoration responsibility in history, cleaning up contamination caused by the manufacturing of nuclear weapons in a network