Nuclear Weapons Production Research Articles

Autobiography of Stanley I. Sandler.

I review my career from its academic beginning to my recent retirement. I grew up and studied chemical engineering in New York City. My initial failure to understand thermodynamics the way it had been taught, evidenced by the difficulty I had when starting graduate school, led me years later to write a textbook on the subject that is now in a fifth edition, in addition to other books I have written. My research areas have included molecular simulation, statistical- and quantum mechanical-based methods, and a variety of experimental thermodynamic measurements. In addition, I have been a consultant in traditional chemical engineering areas, as well in nontraditional areas, such as assisting in the design of a heat shield for interplanetary exploration, the destruction of armed chemical weapons, and the cleanup of nuclear weapons production facilities.

Uranium Biomineralization with Phosphate—Biogeochemical Process and Its Application

Anthropogenic activities involving uranium mining, nuclear fuel processing, nuclear weapon production, or nuclear power plant accidents have polluted soil and groundwater. As a byproduct of the ura...

Components of Success of the Soviet Atomic Bomb Project

September 28, 2017, marked the 75th anniversary of the issuance of the Resolution of the State Defense Committee (SDC) On Uranium Mining, which laid the foundation for the Atomic Project, one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the Soviet Union. This article is dedicated to reconstruction of the factors that ensured its successful implementation. The completion of the project is attributed to the late 1950s, but the author focuses on the period from 1945 through 1953. On the one hand, it was then that the scientific, technical, material, and organizational prerequisites for the production of nuclear weapons were created, and, on the other, that time can be called the “golden age of the command economy,” when its capabilities manifested themselves to the full. Turning to it allows one to understand better how the command economy in its classical, Stalinist, version achieved success and what limitations it had.

Is Long-Term Heavy Metal Exposure Driving Carriage of Antibiotic Resistance in Environmental Opportunistic Pathogens: A Comprehensive Phenomic and Genomic Assessment Using Serratia sp. SRS-8-S-2018.

The carriage of both, heavy metal and antibiotic resistance appears to be a common trait in bacterial communities native to long-term contaminated habitats, including the Savannah River Site (SRS). There is widespread soil contamination at the SRS; a United States Department of Energy (DOE) facility with long-term contamination from past industrial and nuclear weapons production activities. To further evaluate the genomic and metabolic traits that underpin metal and antibiotic resistance, a robust mercury (Hg) and uranium (U)-resistant strain- SRS-8-S-2018, was isolated. Minimum inhibitory concentration of this strain revealed resistance to Hg (10 μg/ml) and U (5 mM), the two main heavy metal contaminants at the SRS. Metabolic assessment of strain SRS-8-S-2018 using Biolog metabolic fingerprinting analysis revealed preference for carbohydrate utilization followed by polymers, amino acids, carboxy acids, and esters; this physiological activity diminished when Hg stress was provided at 1 and 3 μg/ml and completely ceased at 5 μg/ml Hg, indicating that continued release of Hg will have negative metabolic impacts to even those microorganisms that possess high resistance ability. Development of antibiotic resistance in strain SRS-8-S-2018 was evaluated at a functional level using phenomics, which confirmed broad resistance against 70.8% of the 48 antibiotics tested. Evolutionary and adaptive traits of strain SRS-8-S-2018 were further assessed using genomics, which revealed the strain to taxonomically affiliate with Serratia marcescens species, possessing a genome size of 5,323,630 bp, 5,261 proteins (CDS), 55 genes for transfer RNA (tRNA), and an average G + C content of 59.48. Comparative genomics with closest taxonomic relatives revealed 360 distinct genes in SRS-8-S-2018, with multiple functions related to both, antibiotic and heavy metal resistance, which likely facilitates the strain’s survival in a metalliferous soil habitat. Comparisons drawn between the environmentally isolated Serratia SRS-8-S-2018 with 31 other strains revealed a closer functional association with medically relevant isolates suggesting that propensity of environmental Serratia isolates in acquiring virulence traits, as a function of long-term exposure to heavy metals, which is facilitating development, recruitment and proliferation of not only metal resistant genes (MRGs) but antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs), which can potentially trigger future bacterial pathogen outbreaks emanating from contaminated environmental habitats.

Nuclear Weapons and the Treadmill of Destruction in the Making of the Anthropocene

This research analyzes the human dimensions of environmental degradation and injustice in the age of nuclear weapons. Human societies are fundamentally linked to global environmental systems and are transforming ecological conditions in dramatic ways, such that the current epoch has been termed the Anthropocene. This article highlights the human health consequences, ecological transformations, and threats to biodiversity imposed by military institutions in the Anthropocene; emphasizing how these outcomes can be traced to specific interrelated sets of processes and generative conditions. I advance the treadmill of destruction theory as one useful theoretical framework for examining these socio-ecological interrelationships. The investigation focuses on the institutional foundations of nuclear war strategy and preparations for nuclear war, and their interactions with ecosystems. I provide an analysis of the American nuclear weapons production process, revealing how a treadmill of destruction emerged after World War II. This analysis of how the developmental dynamics of nuclear weapons have changed over time brings greater clarity to the Anthropocene concept and the distinct role of military institutions in shaping the new era.

Speciation of Uranium and Plutonium From Nuclear Legacy Sites to the Environment: A Mini Review.

The row of 15 chemical elements from Ac to Lr with atomic numbers from 89 to 103 are known as the actinides, which are all radioactive. Among them, uranium and plutonium are the most important as they are used in the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear weapon production. Since the beginning of national nuclear programs and nuclear tests, many radioactively contaminated nuclear legacy sites, have been formed. This mini review covers the latest experimental, modeling, and case studies of plutonium and uranium migration in the environment, including the speciation of these elements and the chemical reactions that control their migration pathways.

Characterization of spent Purolite A530E resin with implications for long-term radioactive contaminant removal

Direct removal of pertechnetate anion (TcO4−) from subsurface contaminated groundwater plumes at legacy nuclear weapons production sites, is an effective remediation strategy to prevent their spread to adjacent aquifers. However, it is also challenging because TcO4− is a trace component in the contaminated groundwater, which typically contains a large excess of other anionic constituents, such nitrate, sulfate, chloride and others. Direct removal can be achieved through ion exchange treatment using Purolite A530E resin, which has been evaluated under laboratory conditions, but many questions regarding its long-term operational performance remain. To address this need, here we report comprehensive characterization of the spent Purolite A530E resin which processed over 5.38 × 109 L of contaminated groundwater and successfully removed about 3.78 Ci of technetium-99 during four years of operation at the 200 West Pump & Treat facility at the US DOE Hanford site. However, this TcO4− loading constitutes only about 0.034 % of the theoretical capacity of the resin, which nearly fully loaded with nitrate and sulfate at the respective 79 and 6% of the resin capacity. Small quantity of iodine-127/129 was also retained by the resin. Mechanisms of competing anions sorption were investigated using pristine Purolite A530E resin, which exhibited highly efficient uptake of iodide and only moderate affinity for iodate. Sorption isotherms for both iodine anions and nitrate obeyed the Freundlich model. Selectivity trend observed for the pristine Purolite A530E resin followed the decrease in the Gibbs free energy of anion hydration allowing for the prediction of its relative affinity for different anions present in the influent streams.

The politics of baselining in the Grants uranium mining district of northwestern New Mexico

During the second half of the twentieth century, northwestern New Mexico served as the primary production site for one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals. From 1948 to 1970 the “Grants uranium district” provided almost half of the total uranium ore accumulated by the United States federal government for the production of nuclear weapons, in addition to becoming a national source for commercial nuclear energy from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. By the twenty-first century, after a prolonged period of economic decline that began in the late 1970s, all uranium mining and milling in New Mexico had ceased, leaving a legacy of environmental health impacts. What was once referred to as “The Uranium Capital of the World” now encompasses over a thousand abandoned uranium mines and seven massive uranium mill tailings piles, which are associated with airborne and soil contamination as well as groundwater plumes of uranium and other contaminants of concern, in a landscape that has been fractured by underground mine workings and punctured by thousands of exploratory boreholes. This article presents an ethnographic study of the diverse forms of expertise involved in monitoring and managing the mine waste and mill tailings. Drawing from over two years of ethnographic research, I describe the relationship between different stakeholders from local communities, government agencies, and transnational mining corporations as they deliberate about the possibility of cleaning up the former mining district. My thesis is that the possibility of cleaning up the Grants district hinges on the “politics of baselining”—a term I introduce to describe the relationship between stakeholders and their competing environmental models and hydrogeological theories; each accounts for a different geological past prior to mining that can be deemed “natural,” as the background against which to measure the anthropogenic impacts from mining.

Geologic Analysis of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Uranium Resources and Mines

The mining and milling of uranium ore is the first step in the production of fissile material and is a rate-limiting step for the indigenous production of nuclear weapons in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). This study reports a geologic analysis of uranium mines in the DPRK in order to bound the state’s potential uranium production. The analysis suggests that the uranium deposits of the possible mines are of four types: (1) black shale (metamorphosed organic shale); (2) limestone; (3) granite/metasomatic; and (4) metamorphic deposits. Comparison with geologically-related, uranium-bearing host rocks in the Republic of Korea (ROK) indicate that DPRK uranium mines are associated with medium-to-high quantities of average low-grade ore (0.001–0.04 wt.% uranium). Using this low-grade ore, expansion of the state’s nuclear arsenal would require the extraction of larger quantities of uranium ore than has been previously assumed. The DPRK’s geology could, therefore, limit the future development of its nuclear weapons program.

Spectroscopic and Theoretical Insights into Surprisingly Effective Sm(III) Extraction from Alkaline Aqueous Media by o-Phenylenediamine-Derived Sulfonamides.

Alkaline high-level waste (HLW) generated as a result of years of nuclear weapons production has complicated composition and requires comprehensive treatment methods, which would allow concentrating its most radiotoxic components in a small volume for geological disposal. We have investigated six alkyl-substituted o-phenylenediamine-derived sulfonamides for extraction and consecutive stripping of Sm(III) from alkaline aqueous media. Up to 81% of Sm(III) recovery at pH 13.0-13.5 was achieved by disulfonamide (dsa) or dsa/Et3N in CH2Cl2, measured after contact with organic phases and subsequent stripping with 0.1 M HNO3. The use of Et3N dramatically enhances Sm(III) extraction at lower pH ranges (10.5-11.5) but decreases extraction at pH 13.0-13.5, while control experiments with Et3N and no dsa showed no extraction. Analysis of the extraction equilibria gave a 1:1 sulfonamide-Sm(III) complexation ratio, with the extracted species also presumed to contain coordinated H2O or OH-, as also shown by DFT calculations. Titration experiments of sulfonamides with Sm(III) in CH3CN were consistent with a 1:1 complexation ratio of dsa-6 to Sm(III) with a K11 = 6.6 × 107 M-1 derived from nonlinear regression analysis of the 1:1 binding isotherm. Theoretical DFT calculations determined the structures of possible species formed during extraction and the thermodynamics of extraction processes based on several initial [Sm(OH)y(NO3)z(H2O)x]3-y-z species and 1:1 Sm(III)/dsa-32- complexes formed in the organic phase, in which dsa complexes to Sm(III) in its bis-deprotonated form (denoted below as dsa-32-). Organization of close ion pairs of type {Na[Sm(dsa-32-)(OH)2]·2H2O} was shown to be thermodynamically favorable for extraction from alkaline aqueous media with pH = 13.0-13.5. Theoretical calculations also demonstrated thermodynamically favorable coordination to Am(III).

Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests: Environmental, Health, Political, and Sociological Considerations.

The process of nuclear fission, which was discovered in 1938, opened the door to the production of nuclear weapons, which were used in 1945 by the United States against Japan in World War II, and to the detonation of >500 nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere by the United States, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China, and France from 1946-1980. Hundreds of radionuclides, most of them short-lived, were produced in the atmospheric tests. The radioactive clouds produced by the explosions were usually partitioned between the troposphere and the stratosphere: the activity that remained in the troposphere resulted in local and regional fallout, consisting mainly of short-lived radionuclides and in relatively high doses for the populations residing in the vicinity of the test site, whereas the activity that reached the stratosphere returned to the ground with a half-life of ~1 y and was composed of long-lived radionuclides that contaminated all uncovered materials on Earth to a small extent and led to low-level irradiation of the world population for decades or more. The health effects resulting from exposure to radioactive fallout constitute, in most cases, small excesses over baseline rates for thyroid cancer and leukemia. An extra 49,000 cases of thyroid cancer would be expected to occur among the US population from exposure to radioactive fallout from the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that were conducted at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s. In addition, there could be as many as 11,000 deaths from non-thyroid cancers related to fallout from all atmospheric tests that were conducted at all sites in the world, with leukemia making up 10% of the total. Public concern arose in part from the secrecy that surrounded the nuclear testing programs and, for a long time, the poor communication regarding the consequences of the tests, both in terms of radiation doses and of health effects. Sociological and political pressures contributed to the establishment of programs of compensation for radiation exposures and evidence of radiation-induced diseases in countries that incurred significant fallout from nuclear weapons testing.

Wanted: Long-term storage solutions for nuclear waste

More than a quarter million metric tons of highly radioactive waste sits in storage near nuclear power plants and weapons production facilities worldwide, with over 90,000 metric tons in the US alone. Emitting radiation that can pose serious risks to human health and the environment, the waste, much of it decades old, awaits permanent disposal in geological repositories, but none are operational. With nowhere to go for now, the hazardous materials and their containers continue to age. That unsustainable situation is driving corrosion experts to better understand how steel, glass, and other materials proposed for long-term nuclear waste storage containers might degrade. Read on to learn how these researchers’ findings might help protect people and the environment from waste leakages. “Regardless of whether you are for or against nuclear power, and no matter what you think of nuclear weapons, the radioactive waste is already here, and we have to deal

The Disappearing Nuclear Landscape: Snapshots of Lost Atomic Technologies.

The three sites examined in this article served as major production centers in the nuclear weapons assembly line of the Cold War. They employed thousands of American workers during their operational lifespans, exposed even more to health risks, and harmed the environment in ways still being explored. These sites were unique in American industrial manufacturing and performed as components within the larger machinery of the nuclear weapons fabrication system. The preservation experiences at the three sites reflected ongoing struggles to interpret the outcome of the Cold War. The machines and engineering achieved during the operations of these facilities no longer exist on the physical plane. Structures that housed them were obliterated and in some cases buried on site in proximity to their original locations, alongside the very waste generated by these technologies. Technologies associated with the nuclear weapons production sites are being torn down and replaced by monuments; not to weapons production but to remediation and cleanup.

Інформаційна система експертиз радіаційної безпеки

Radiation safety is one of the important components of environmental safety in general. Radiation monitoring is necessary not only in the context of the production and use of nuclear weapons, but also for countries with developed nuclear energy infrastructure or affected by radiation emissions (Ukraine, Belarus, Japan etc.). The management process in this area is quite knowledge-based and, of course, requires careful consideration of all permits, conclusions and reporting. The State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety operates in Ukraine. He carries out research activities, prepares regulatory documents, expert opinions in this area. The company had an outdated information system designed to record, control the timing and status of the implementation of examinations and contracts, and prepare reports. The purpose of the study is to identify the shortcomings of the existing NSTC NRS examination system, design and implement software that will solve problems in the existing nuclear and radiation safety expertise system. This article provides a description of the modernization technologies of this system. In particular, an updated structure, advanced functionality, and software implementation of individual modules are proposed. The software, hardware, and individual software solutions within the tasks meet the standards of software development, database organization, verification, and documentation. The development toolkit is .NET and the C # language. Key words : radiation, safety, system, expertise, accounting

국제법상 환경보호를 위한 핵무기 규제에 관한 연구

In view of past historical experiences, there have been growing concerns that the development, use and proliferation of nuclear weapons can cause widespread and severe damage to the global environment, in spite of differences in the perceptions of environmental risks of nuclear weapons depending on the time period and situation. Thus, the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons has long been one of the major issues in the international community, including environmental aspects. As a result, international legal regulations have been attempted for the manufacture, production, acquisition, possession, transportation, deployment, stockpiling, tests and use of nuclear weapons through multilateral treaties, including international environmental law, and the issue was subjected to judicial judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).BR In light of the potential danger of environmental destruction and damage caused by nuclear weapons, which is more severe and massive than by any other conventional weapons, regulation of nuclear weapons for environmental protection is recognized as a major task in modern international law. The traditional approach to nuclear weapon regulation has been primarily discussed in connection with national security, the prohibition of use of force, nuclear disarmament, and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, partially establishing relevant international norms in the respective fields.BR However, comprehensive regulation is still a long way off through the traditional approach. In addition, as ICJ indicated in its 1996 advisory opinion, this approach is somewhat inappropriate in obtaining a clear answer as to whether there is an international legal obligation to protect the environment from nuclear weapons, whether in peace or at war. Moreover, it is still questioned whether current international norms on nuclear weapon regulation can be an effective international legal basis for environmental protection.BR The author, based on this perception, reviewed the main relevant provisions of major international treaties in the fields of nuclear disarmament and denuclearization (Chapter Ⅱ), international humanitarian law (Chapter Ⅲ), and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) (Chapter Ⅳ), which have been discussed as the influential legal basis to regulate nuclear weapons for the environmental protection in international law, and respectively analyzed their effectiveness as well. Through these discussions, from the perspective of ‘environmental protection’ in the non-ideological and non-political points of view, the author looks forward to being able to provide helpful motives to establish regional and/or global legal regime to not only protect the global environment, but also realize genuine humanitarianism and human rights protection by permanently removing nuclear weapons and achieving denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

What do we know about actinides-proteins interactions?

Abstract Since the early 40s when the first research related to the development of the atomic bomb began for the Manhattan Project, actinides (An) and their association with the use of nuclear energy for civil applications, such as in the generation of electricity, have been a constant source of interest and fear. In 1962, the first Society of Toxicology (SOT), led by H. Hodge, was established at the University of Rochester (USA). It was commissioned as part of the Manhattan Project to assess the impact of nuclear weapons production on workers’ health. As a result of this initiative, the retention and excretion rates of radioactive heavy metals, their physiological impact in the event of acute exposure and their main biological targets were assessed. In this context, the scientific community began to focus on the role of proteins in the transportation and in vivo accumulation of An. The first studies focused on the identification of these proteins. Thereafter, the continuous development of physico-chemical characterization techniques has made it possible to go further and specify the modes of interaction with proteins from both a thermodynamic and structural point of view, as well as from the point of view of their biological activity. This article reviews the work performed in this area since the Manhattan Project. It is divided into three parts: first, the identification of the most affine proteins; second, the study of the affinity and structure of protein-An complexes; and third, the impact of actinide ligation on protein conformation and function.

What really went wrong at WIPP: An insider’s view of two accidents at the only US underground nuclear waste repository

ABSTRACTWithin a 10-day period in February 2014, two accidents happened at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico – the United States’ only underground repository for nuclear waste. First, a truck fire deep in the mine spread soot over key equipment and disabled the repository’s air monitoring system. Then a chemical reaction breached a waste drum, causing a radiological release that contaminated large areas of the repository. Two Accident Investigation Boards and a Technical Assessment Team identified the immediate causes of the accidents and recommended remedial actions. The author, who served as the Deputy Under Secretary of the Energy Department at the time of the accidents and during the three years WIPP was closed, examines the larger problems within the Energy Department and its contractors that set the stage for the accidents. He places the blame on mismanagement at the Los Alamos National Laboratory; structural problems created by a statutory “fence” between the National Nuclear Security Administration and the rest of the Energy Department, including the Office of Environmental Management, which is responsible for disposing of the waste from more than 60 years of nuclear weapons production; and a breakdown of the “nuclear culture.”

Overhaul urged for US nuclear weapons cleanup

An expert science panel is calling for the US Department of Energy to overhaul science and technology development for cleaning up the nation’s nuclear weapons sites. The huge cleanup program has already taken nearly 40 years and will likely take at least 50 more, says a report released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on March 4. Cleanup has cost $170 billion to date and is likely to draw at least another $377 billion, according to panel chair and Columbia University engineering professor Patricia J. Culligan. The DOE is responsible for cleaning up 107 sites used for nuclear weapons development, testing, and production during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. The formal program began in the 1980s and has cleaned up 91 sites so far. The remaining 16 sites present the thorniest radioactive and hazardous waste challenges. To address those challenges, the National Academies report recommends

Occupational Radiation Hazards and Competency Assessment

Non-ionizing radiation is the energy traveling through space and is crucial to life, but extreme exposures will cause tissue damage and mutations. The ionizing radiations have sufficient energy due to high frequency and may cause DNA damage. Radiation sources are prevalent in occupational settings, like hospitals, research institutions, nuclear reactors, nuclear weapon production facilities. On earth, sunlight is the most common source of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Man-made UV sources include UV lamps, arc welding, and mercury vapor lamps. The UV radiation is extensively used in industrial processes and medical and dental practices for a variety of purposes. Excessive exposure to UV radiation is associated with skin cancer, sunburn, accelerated skin aging, and eye disease. The new wireless technology appliances have been used extensively without studying their hazardous effects on society. For instance, the issue of so-called non-thermal effects and potential long-term effects of low-dose exposure were barely examined before the introduction of these technologies. These hazardous sources of radiation can pose a considerable health risk to the workers if not adequately controlled. This review provides a starting point for technical and regulatory information regarding the recognition, evaluation, and control of occupational radiation health hazards.

Proteogenomic Analysis of Burkholderia Species Strains 25 and 46 Isolated from Uraniferous Soils Reveals Multiple Mechanisms to Cope with Uranium Stress.

Two Burkholderia spp. (strains SRS-25 and SRS-46) were isolated from high concentrations of uranium (U) from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-managed Savannah River Site (SRS). SRS contains soil gradients that remain co-contaminated by heavy metals from previous nuclear weapons production activities. Uranium (U) is one of the dominant contaminants within the SRS impacted soils, which can be microbially transformed into less toxic forms. We established microcosms containing strains SRS-25 and SRS-46 spiked with U and evaluated the microbially-mediated depletion with concomitant genomic and proteomic analysis. Both strains showed a rapid depletion of U; draft genome sequences revealed SRS-25 genome to be of approximately 8,152,324 bp, a G + C content of 66.5, containing a total 7604 coding sequences with 77 total RNA genes. Similarly, strain SRS-46 contained a genome size of 8,587,429 bp with a G + C content of 67.1, 7895 coding sequences, with 73 total RNA genes, respectively. An in-depth, genome-wide comparisons between strains 25, 46 and a previously isolated strain from our research (Burkholderia sp. strain SRS-W-2-2016), revealed a common pool of 3128 genes; many were found to be homologues to previously characterized metal resistance genes (e.g., for cadmium, cobalt, and zinc), as well as for transporter, stress/detoxification, cytochromes, and drug resistance functions. Furthermore, proteomic analysis of strains with or without U stress, revealed the increased expression of 34 proteins from strain SRS-25 and 52 proteins from strain SRS-46; similar to the genomic analyses, many of these proteins have previously been shown to function in stress response, DNA repair, protein biosynthesis and metabolism. Overall, this comparative proteogenomics study confirms the repertoire of metabolic and stress response functions likely rendering the ecological competitiveness to the isolated strains for colonization and survival in the heavy metals contaminated SRS soil habitat.