Subscription Center
Sep 9, 2008 06:20 PM | 3
The "ultra-secure uranium warehouse of the future" in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is now built, if not quite ready for work. Part of Complex 2030—the Bush Administration's ambitious and little known plan to revamp the nation's aging infrastructure for building nuclear weapons—the warehouse will provide one location for the nation's supply of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) that makes for a powerful nuclear bomb.
Two years of testing remain before the HEU will actually show up, but the $549 million facility will replace "multiple" current storage locations scattered throughout the country. The HEU depot used 92,000 cubic yards of concrete, 5,800 tons of rebar and contains more than 1.5 million feet of wiring—and will ultimately be one of two locations used to store and process "thousands of containers of material," according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, the branch of the U.S. Department of Energy tasked with dealing with the nation's nuclear arsenal.
Of course, it remains an open question what said nuclear arsenal—at least 10,000 missiles and other weapons—is for, nearly 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, all that fissile uranium has to go somewhere and it might as well be the thickest bunker in Tennessee.
Credit: istockphoto.com
Tags:
NNSA,
nuclear weapons,
Y-12,
uranium,
complex 2030,
nuclear security,
nukes
More News Blog:
Next: Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is live--And so are we
Previous: Jet fuel from algae passes first test
See what we're tweeting about
sciam Will digital technology save or destroy education? Tell us: Nature & Scientific American student (& non-stud) survey http://t.co/U2lr7Ebt9S
sciencegoddess .@ElsPietro @sciam @SkyNews Thanks! Happy to comment on @Cmdr_Hadfield's outreach! sciencegoddess Must read RT @David_Dobbs: Thanks. RT @utafrith: Thanks @David_Dobbs for sober review of Grandin's new book at http://t.co/2A44rdI4cE
Deadline: Aug 31 2013
Reward: $100,000 USD
The Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer’s Initiative (GBFAI) is launching the 2013 Geoffrey Beene Global NeuroDiscovery Challenge whose
Deadline: Jun 30 2013
Reward: $1,000,000 USD
This is a Reduction-to-Practice Challenge that requires written documentation and&
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
3 Comments
Add CommentWhen the people who sell our goverment new weapons are hired by the our government to buy weapons, and then hired back, and forth, over and over and over, this is what we get. Stupid, excessive and wasteful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, I feel so much safer now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you denature the U235 by micing it with enough natural uranium, you have an ideal fuel for Nuclear Power plants by the hundreds. You create no additional danfeerous waste and you get fuel that is mostly already paid for. Finally, you get accoaldes from most of the world for leading the way out of the nuclear holocaust threat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this