© Sabine Hilding 1999
Inside Fast Flux Test Facility

Plutonium 238 production at FFTF

By Jim Baldwin

We oppose the use of the FFTF for Pu-238 production for space probe batteries because:

• The US has enough existing Pu-238 inventory to last at least through 2004, and an existing contract with Russia to buy up to three times that much.

• Pu-238 is 275 times as radioactive as weapons-grade plutonium. Any accidents relating to its production or use in spacecraft could be correspondingly worse.

• The DOE is under no requirement to create a domestic supply, it simply "proposes" to do so.

• NASA has stated that there are plausible alternatives for spacecraft power but has failed to explore these energetically. There is some evidence that the ultimate agenda for Pu-238 is to power the militarization of space in violation of many existing treaties.

• If needed, Pu-238 could be made in existing reactors which are already operating anyway. Why produce more nuclear waste for the same end result?

• Processing Pu-238 at Hanford would contaminate a clean facility and create more liquid waste to go into the waste tanks.