Recycling plutonium is dangerous and costly. Britain should take the lead on direct disposal, say Frank von Hippel, Rodney Ewing, Richard Garwin and Allison Macfarlane.
Access options
Subscribe to Journal
Get full journal access for 1 year
220,50 €
only 4,32 € per issue
All prices include VAT for France.
Rent or Buy article
Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.
from$8.99
All prices are NET prices.
References
- 1.
International Panel on Fissile Materials. Global Fissile Material Report 2011 (IPFM, 2011); available at http://go.nature.com/fi58zk
- 2.
Committee on International Security and Arms Control. Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium (National Academies Press, 1994).
- 3.
Wigeland, R. A. et al. Paper 496 in Proc. GLOBAL '05, Tsukuba, Japan, October 2005.
- 4.
Charpin, J. M., Dessus, B. & Pellat, R. Economic Forecast Study of the Nuclear Power Option (Commissariat Général du Plan, France, 2000).
- 5.
US Department of Energy FY 2013 Congressional Budget Request Vol. 1, 460–461 (2012); available at http://go.nature.com/4posor
- 6.
Yudintsev, S. V. et al. in Structural Chemistry of Inorganic Actinide Compounds (eds Krivovichev, S. V. et al.) 457–490 (Elsevier, 2007).
- 7.
Ewing, R. C. & Weber, W. J. in The Chemistry of the Actinides and Transactinide Elements Vol. 6 (eds Morss, L. R. et al.) 3813–3887 (Springer, 2011).
- 8.
Halsey, W. G., Jardine, L. J. & Walter, C. E. Disposition of Plutonium in Deep Boreholes (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 1995).
- 9.
Gibb, F. G. F., Taylor, K. J. & Burakov, B. E. J. Nucl. Mat. 374, 364–369 (2008).
Author information
Affiliations
Frank von Hippel is professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA, and co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.
- Frank von Hippel
Rodney Ewing is professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
- Rodney Ewing
Richard Garwin is a physicist and IBM Fellow emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, New York, USA.
- Richard Garwin
Allison Macfarlane is associate professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA.
- Allison Macfarlane
Authors
Search for Frank von Hippel in:
Search for Rodney Ewing in:
Search for Richard Garwin in:
Search for Allison Macfarlane in:
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Frank von Hippel.
Rights and permissions
To obtain permission to re-use content from this article visit RightsLink.
About this article
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.