10% of US electricity generated from old Russian Nukes

[n2doc]

Power for U.S. From Russia’s Old Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear missiles prepared for destruction at a base near the city of Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. Utilities have been loath to publicize the Russian bomb supply line for fear of spooking consumers

By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: November 9, 2009

MOSCOW — What’s powering your home appliances?

Multiple warhead ballistic missiles like the ones deployed at this site north of Russia's border with Kazakhstan are being dismantled. Some nuclear material goes to the United States.


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For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones.

“It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war.

But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers.
Already nervous about a supply gap, utilities operating America’s 104 nuclear reactors are paying as much attention to President Obama’s efforts to conclude a new arms treaty as the Nobel Peace Prize committee did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/business/energy-environment/10nukes.html?_r=1

[krispos42]

1. Every kilo of plutonium or uranium...

...has huge amounts of man-hours and kilowatt-hours of labor and energy built into it, mostly in the refinement process. It only makes sense to "burn" it up.

Kinda nice it's Russian, though. Very symbolic. :-)

[Statistical]

5. Nice had nothing to do with it, $$$$ did.

We have agreement to buy the weapons grade material from them.

We did it for 3 reasons
1) it gets rid of nuclear warheads
2) it got weapons grade material out of the politically unstable Russian states (program was started at end of cold war)
3) it supplements natural uranium supplies

Russia needed money badly at the time. Still it is good they agreed and we were willing to buy it. Truly a win-win-win arrangement.

A little factiod is that our currently nuclear arsenal could power all our nuclear power plants for about 60 years.

[ProleNoMore]

2. You Mean Sarah Palin's Alaska Runs In Part On Ruskie Fuel Rods?

eom

[NNadir]

12. No. Unfortunately Alaska has zero nuclear power plants. It is a dangerous fossil fuel hell hole,

sort of like Maine.

[Indenturedebtor]

3. What a win-win! Those rockets are damn impressive

I wonder what the world would be like if both the US and Russia had invested in infrastructure and education instead of all those missiles.

[TheWraith]

4. I wonder if we could do anything besides recycling with the missiles themselves.

Might not be practical, but I wonder if they could be retrofitted to launch low-orbit satellites.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Nice idea...

I don't think ICBM stages have the delta-v for LEO, but I like your thinking. Maybe something like atmospheric research? Doing the same stuff as weather ballons, but on a rapid-response basis.
:shrug:

[GliderGuider]

10. The Soyuz, Atlas and Titan launch vehicles were all developed as ICBMs

Plenty of dV.

The solid fuelled ICBMs of later vintage are not suitable due to generally low throw weights.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. Cool

Filed under "Things I didn't know I didn't know"... :)

[Nihil]

14. A "rapid-response" weather balloon?

That should scare the shit out of NORAD & friends ...

"Sorry guys, stand down - it was just the Russian Met Office again!"

:yoiks:

[Statistical]

6. Cost of US nuclear weapons program from begining till end of cold war was about $7 trillion dollars.

[Indenturedebtor]

11. Yowsers... is that adjusted for inflation by year or is that just cash money? n/t

[hunter]

7. Which is scarier? Bomb-ready uranium and plutonium or nuclear power plant fuel?

I'd much rather have the nuclear power plant fuel, thank you. In a perfect world all the bombs would be converted to power plant fuel.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. But somebody might make the fuel back into bombs!

:crazy: