Heads up, Idaho

The Bush administration is planning to resume the country's production of plutonium 238 for "national security" reasons, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The report quoted US officials as saying that the program would produce a total of 330 pounds of plutonium 238 over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory for a total cost of nearly 1.5 billion dollars.

Project managers declined to disclose any details about the program but said that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions.

[...]

Plutonium 238 has no central role in nuclear weapons but was regularly used by the United States to make nuclear batteries thatcan work for years or decades to power satellites, planetary probes and spy devices.

[...]

According to the report, the United States stopped made plutonium 238 in the 1980s and instead relies on aging stockpiles or imports from Russia. But by agreement with Russia, Washington cannot use the imported material for military purposes.

With its domestic stockpile running low, Washington now wants to restart production by 2012 and have the first plutonium 238 available by 2013, the report quoted Frazier as saying. But in order to proceed with the plan, the Bush administration still haveto acquire congressional approval.

  Xinhuanet article

No problem, I'm sure.

"The real reason we're starting production is for national security," Timothy A. Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the Energy Department, said in a recent interview.

He vigorously denied that any of the classified missions would involve nuclear arms, satellites or weapons in space.

  NY Times article

I trust 'em.

"It's going to be a tough world in the next one or two decades, and this may be needed," said a senior federal scientist who helps the military plan space missions and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the possibility that he would contradict federal policies. "Technologically, it makes sense."

Will Halliburton get the contract?

Plutonium 238 is hundreds of times more radioactive than the kind of plutonium used in nuclear arms, plutonium 239. Medical experts agree that inhaling even a speck poses a serious risk of lung cancer.

[...]

Early in the nuclear era, the government became fascinated by plutonium 238 and used it regularly to make nuclear batteries that worked for years or decades. Scores of them powered satellites, planetary probes and spy devices, at times with disastrous results.

In 1964, a rocket failure led to the destruction of a navigation satellite powered by plutonium 238, spreading radioactivity around the globe and starting a debate over the event's health effects.

In 1965, high in the Himalayas, an intelligence team caught in a blizzard lost a plutonium-powered device meant to spy on China. And in 1968, an errant weather satellite crashed into the Pacific, but federal teams managed to recover its plutonium battery intact from the Santa Barbara Channel, off California.

Yeah, well, it's a tough world out there, and no price is too great to pay to keep those terrorists away from the Americans they so want to kill.

It makes sense.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.