Re: A new nuclear option ?

[jriley@lib.drury.edu (Jim Riley)]

I also vaguely remembering something about "burning" plutonium and wonder if
they weren't using "burning" in the popular science sense as in "burning"
uranium as fuel in a reactor, i.e. fissioning the plutonium.  That would
produce other nuclear isotopes with shorter half lives which might be easier
to deal with.  Simply store them until their natural decay has rendered them
harmless.  It doesn't seem like such a great idea to me since the fission
products are nasty in themselves but it might explain the use of the word
"burning" in association with plutonium.  Certainly Plutonium Oxide has the
same nuclear emissions as does Plutonium.  
> I believe that I heard on an NPR news broadcast that one of the options for 
> Pu disposal was "burning"--admittedly, this was at something like 4 a.m., 
> and the newsreader may have just misread "burying"      I said "huh?????" 
> and wondered what burning would accomplish other than generating a big pile 
> of PuO which would then have to be vitrified and buried.  Does anyone know 
> anything further about this supposed option?    M.J. Clarke, College of St. 
> Scholastica, Duluth.
Jim Riley, Department of Physics
Drury College
900 N Benton Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802
e-mail: jriley@lib.drury.edu
Phone:  (407) 873 7233