{"id":16823,"date":"2016-01-22T12:58:01","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T17:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16823"},"modified":"2016-01-22T13:01:03","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T18:01:03","slug":"plutoniums-global-problems-are-piling-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16823","title":{"rendered":"Plutonium\u2019s global problems are piling up"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"article_title is-main\"><a href=\"http:\/\/climatenewsnetwork.net\/plutoniums-global-problems-are-piling-up\/\">Plutonium\u2019s global problems are piling up\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/climatenewsnetwork.net\/plutoniums-global-problems-are-piling-up\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-article-full wp-post-image\" src=\"http:\/\/climatenewsnetwork.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/CROP-barrow-ships-800x400.jpg\" alt=\"CROP -- barrow ships\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"article_summary\">\n<div class=\"article_excerpt\">\n<p>The nuclear fuel carriers Pacific Heron and Pacific Egret in port at Barrow-in-Furness, England, before setting sail for Japan.\u00a0<em>Image: CORE<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article_content with-sidebar\">\n<div class=\"ssba ssba-wrap\"><strong>Increasing worldwide stockpiles of surplus plutonium are becoming a political embarrassment, a worrying security risk, and a hidden extra cost to the nuclear industry.<\/strong><\/div>\n<p><em>LONDON, 22 January, 2016 \u2212<\/em>\u00a0Two armed ships set off from the northwest of England this week to sail round the world to Japan on a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk\/news\/20-january-2016\/\" target=\"_blank\">secretive and controversial mission to collect a consignment of plutonium<\/a>\u00a0and transport it to the US.<\/p>\n<p>The cargo of plutonium, once the most sought-after and valuable substance in the world, is one of a number of ever-growing stockpiles that are becoming an increasing financial and security embarrassment to the countries that own them.<\/p>\n<p>So far, there is no commercially viable use for this toxic metal, and there is increasing fear that plutonium could fall into the hands of terrorists, or that governments could be tempted to use it to join the nuclear arms race.<\/p>\n<p>All the plans to use plutonium for peaceful purposes in fast breeder and commercial reactors have so far failed to keep pace with the amounts of this highly-dangerous radioactive metal being produced by the countries that run nuclear power stations.<\/p>\n<p>The small amounts of plutonium that have been used in conventional and fast breeder reactors have produced very little electricity \u2212 at startlingly high costs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Out of harm\u2019s way<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Japan, with its 47-ton stockpile, is among the countries that once hoped to turn their plutonium into a power source, but various attempts have failed. The government, which has a firm policy of using it only for peaceful purposes, has nonetheless come under pressure to keep it out of harm\u2019s way. Hence, the current plan to ship it to the US.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plutonium\u2019s global problems are piling up\u00a0 The nuclear fuel carriers Pacific Heron and Pacific Egret in port at Barrow-in-Furness, England, before setting sail for Japan.\u00a0Image: CORE Increasing worldwide stockpiles of surplus plutonium are becoming a political embarrassment, a worrying security risk, and a hidden extra cost to the nuclear industry. LONDON, 22 January, 2016 \u2212\u00a0Two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[9245,452,6141,579,11911,5325],"class_list":["post-16823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-climate-news-network","tag-japan","tag-nuclear-industry","tag-nuclear-power","tag-paul-brown","tag-plutonium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16824,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16823\/revisions\/16824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}