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00:00Put on your gun.
00:30Observers without goggles must face away from the blast.
00:35Осталось около...
00:41H-minus 10 seconds.
00:44Nine, eight,
00:46семи, шести,
00:48five, four,
00:50трех, двух, одной.
01:00For nearly 50 years,
01:09the world has lived in fear that for one terrible and final moment,
01:12this would be the last image that most of us would see.
01:16Now, at the end of the Cold War,
01:18it seems as if this global insanity may have been averted.
01:22In the wake of disarmament, however,
01:23a new and more sinister threat has emerged.
01:27What on earth does the world do
01:29with all those unused nuclear weapons?
01:31Ever since the nuclear genie was released from its bottle in 1945,
01:47the world has been engaged in a diabolical race.
01:50The race to win a numbers war,
01:52the number of times each superpower
01:54could obliterate the other's population.
01:56At the height of the Cold War,
01:58with a combined arsenal of over 70,000 nuclear weapons,
02:01it is estimated that each side could kill
02:04every one of the other citizens 17 times over.
02:07By the 80s,
02:09no one could have imagined what was about to happen.
02:13We have agreed to eliminate
02:15the world's most dangerous weapons,
02:19heavy ICBMs,
02:20and all other multiple warhead ICBMs.
02:26We shall not fight against each other.
02:30This is a solemn undertaking
02:31that we are taking today,
02:32and it will be reflected
02:34as a matter of partnership and friendship
02:36in the charter that we are going to sign.
02:42Remarkably, in 1991,
02:45Russia and America agreed
02:46that by the year 2003,
02:48each would reduce their atomic warhead stockpiles
02:51by over 90%.
02:53The era of the global nuclear nightmare was over.
02:57Or was it?
03:08As much of the Russian navy
03:10was left to rust in peace,
03:12dozens of neglected nuclear submarines
03:14sank gently to the bottom of the harbour.
03:16For the superpowers,
03:28the treaties meant that more than 60,000 nuclear warheads
03:31would need to be scrapped.
03:35It was to prove much, much easier
03:38for the politicians to say
03:39than for the scientists to do.
03:41I think we have created a Frankenstein's monster
03:46in the form of stockpiles
03:49of nuclear weapons scattered all over the world.
03:52The difficulty is going to be
03:55not to convince the majority of human beings,
03:58I believe,
03:59but to convince those in charge
04:01of my country,
04:04yours,
04:05countries all over the world,
04:08that nuclear weapons are something
04:10that the human race
04:13is not equipped to deal with.
04:16And the record of that
04:17is in the last 50 years of what's happened.
04:2050 years in which scientists around the world
04:22have diligently and conscientiously
04:25devised better and more efficient means
04:27of global destruction.
04:28In 1933,
04:32the world's most famous scientist
04:34fled German Nazism
04:35to continue his academic research.
04:38His name was Albert Einstein.
04:40On August 2, 1939,
04:42Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt
04:44to warn him of a startling development.
04:47The letter described recent research,
04:49which seemed to confirm
04:50the theoretical predictions
04:51of his famous relativity theory.
04:54Among many radical ideas,
04:55it predicted that matter
04:56could be converted into energy,
04:58and thus make a bomb.
05:01E is equal mc squared,
05:05in which energy is put equal to mass,
05:08multiplied with the square
05:09of the velocity of light,
05:11showed that very small amount of mass
05:15may be converted
05:17into a very large amount of energy.
05:20In an old squash court
05:22in the heart of Chicago,
05:23Enrico Fermi and his colleagues
05:25succeeded in generating
05:26the world's first atomic chain reaction.
05:29They showed that the natural tendency
05:31of an unstable uranium atom
05:33to give off high-energy subatomic particles
05:36called neutrons
05:36could be used to trigger further instability
05:39in other neighbouring uranium atoms.
05:41These, in turn,
05:42give off yet more high-energy neutrons.
05:44And this super-fast interaction
05:47soon infects the entire population
05:49in a chain reaction.
05:51The result is light, heat and pressure.
05:54In other words, a bomb.
05:58In 1943, in the mountains of New Mexico,
06:01Robert Oppenheimer,
06:02under the direct orders of President Roosevelt,
06:05assembled a team of eminent physicists.
06:07They came from all over America,
06:09a team from Britain,
06:11and a few who had escaped the war in Europe.
06:13Known as the Manhattan Project,
06:15its task was to see if Einstein was right.
06:18They experimented with two radioactive elements,
06:21uranium, which occurred naturally,
06:23but also a new man-made element,
06:25plutonium, created just three years earlier.
06:29Not only did they have to refine
06:30the rare nuclear materials,
06:32they also had to find a way
06:33to make them explode.
06:37It took almost two years,
06:39but finally,
06:40a car carrying half of the world's stock
06:42of the new man-made plutonium
06:43was taken to the valley of
06:45Jornada del Muerto,
06:46the journey of death.
06:49To Oppenheimer and his colleagues,
06:51it was known simply as Trinity.
06:54George MacDonald's ranch house
06:56was chosen as the site
06:57for the final assembly of the bomb.
07:00Optimistically, a jeep was kept outside
07:02with its engine running permanently
07:04in case of emergency.
07:07On July the 14th,
07:08the gadget, as the two-ton bomb was known,
07:11was hoisted to the top
07:12of a 100-foot-high
07:13Forest Service watchtower.
07:16The scientists were running a sweep,
07:18and Enrico Fermi was taking bets
07:19that the bomb would ignite the atmosphere,
07:21wiping out all life on Earth.
07:23He was giving especially favourable odds
07:25on the mere destruction of New Mexico.
07:27The final warning flare was fired
07:31on the morning of the 16th of July, 1945,
07:34at 5.29am,
07:35the last firing circuit connected.
07:37The end of the 16th of July,
08:07the last night,
08:08Openheimer quoted the sacred Hindu text,
08:11the Bhagavad Gita,
08:12I become death,
08:15the shatterer of worlds.
08:1821 days later,
08:20Little Boy,
08:21a four-ton untested uranium bomb,
08:24was dropped on the Japanese town of Hiroshima.
08:27At its pre-assigned detonation altitude of 1,900 feet,
08:38it exploded directly above a hospital.
08:47It's difficult to know how many died in that instant.
08:50Estimates vary between 70 and 100,000.
08:53Another 100,000 were to die of the bomb's after-effects
08:56within the next five years.
08:58Just three days later,
09:25Fat Man,
09:25a different type of atom bomb,
09:28fuelled this time by plutonium,
09:30was dropped on Nagasaki.
09:38The Japanese surrendered on August the 14th.
09:41We had indeed become
09:42the shatterer of worlds.
09:45Although there was no-one left to fight,
09:52the scientists continued developing and improving the bomb
09:54to make it more efficient and more deadly.
10:01An act of Congress was passed,
10:03outlawing any further disclosure of nuclear technology,
10:06even to the British.
10:07It became America's top secret,
10:17and it was one they wished to keep to themselves.
10:21Unfortunately, atomic bombs are easy to make.
10:25The problem is centered on getting the material which is necessary to make nuclear explosions.
10:34There are two materials.
10:36One is plutonium,
10:37and the other is uranium-235,
10:40which exists in nature but has to be concentrated.
10:42And the way the bombs work is to assemble enough material in a sphere, usually,
10:50so that it can maintain a very fast chain reaction of fission.
10:57Fission releasing neutrons,
10:59the neutrons in turn causing fissions and everything exploding
11:03in a giant population explosion of neutrons and fission products.
11:10The Hiroshima bomb contained a mass of uranium,
11:13which was not quite enough to sustain a nuclear chain reaction.
11:17To make it explode,
11:18an additional mass, a slug of uranium,
11:20was fired into a precisely engineered slot.
11:23At that moment,
11:24the chain reaction achieved, as they say,
11:26a prompt criticality.
11:28However, uranium is extremely dangerous to handle and very unstable.
11:32The first choice for most atom bomb makers is plutonium,
11:35and ever since Fat Man,
11:37the plutonium heart has come to be known as a pit,
11:40the American word for a peach stone.
11:43A pit is the interior trigger of a nuclear weapon.
11:46It consists of nuclear material, such as plutonium,
11:49surrounded by non-nuclear containment material,
11:52such as the stainless steel that you see here.
11:55The plutonium exists as a shell
11:57on the interior of this,
11:58so this is a hollow device.
12:00An essential part of the weapon function
12:02is the injection of a mixture of deuterium and tritium gas.
12:05We do so during weapon function
12:07in something called the boost process.
12:09This material is then compressed very tightly
12:12by high explosives to achieve a critical mass,
12:14where energy is released by fission reactions of the plutonium.
12:17What actually happens as an atomic bomb explodes?
12:22Within a microsecond of detonation,
12:26the chain reaction causes the pressure inside the pit
12:28to reach millions of pounds
12:30and the temperature tens of millions of degrees.
12:33As the atoms split,
12:34energy is released in the form of X-rays,
12:36which leave the bomb at the speed of light.
12:39The flash sets buildings, trees and people on fire
12:42before the explosion has even been heard.
12:58Air surrounding the bomb absorbs the X-rays
13:01and heats up, becoming visible.
13:03The huge increase in pressure creates a shockwave
13:07which punches outward from the centre of the explosion.
13:10Close behind, a wind of over 300 miles an hour,
13:13shattering and destroying everything
13:15within thousands of yards of ground zero.
13:17A giant fireball of hot air starts to rise,
13:36sucking up thousands of tonnes of rock and earth,
13:39forming itself into the shape of a mushroom.
13:41The cloud will climb to over 50,000 feet,
13:44a swirling mass of hot and highly dangerous radioactive particles
13:48known as fallout.
13:50It will drift with the winds across thousands of miles
13:53before it decays and becomes safe.
13:58It was a world-beating technology
13:59which America wanted to keep secret.
14:02But before very long,
14:03with the assistance of a few stolen plans,
14:06the brilliant Russian physicists Yuri Kariton
14:08and Igor Kurchatov
14:10were able to copy the Nagasaki bomb.
14:14Joe I was successfully exploded in August 1949
14:23at Semipalyatinsk, 1800 miles southeast of Moscow.
14:28The terrifying global atom bomb race had begun.
14:33It was the most exciting period, certainly in my life,
14:37and I think for most of the people working at Los Alamos
14:40and then later Livermore Laboratory.
14:43It was unbearably exciting,
14:46and yet we sort of took it in stride
14:48in the sense that we were mostly young men,
14:51no women at the test site in the Pacific,
14:55who were totally excited about what we were doing.
14:58And I remember saying to myself,
15:03watching these grown men in their 30s mostly,
15:07in short pants, ripped off just above the knee,
15:11acting like little boys playing with their toys.
15:15And here we were, toward the end of this,
15:17playing with megatons,
15:18with explosions,
15:21one of which released more energy
15:23than all the bombs in World War II.
15:25And we were playing.
15:29And I guess, to me, in retrospect,
15:33starting many years ago,
15:35that's come to be a sense of insanity.
15:39It was an insanity that seems to have infected everybody.
15:43There was a turtle by the name of Bert,
15:51and Bert the turtle was very alert,
15:54and danger threatened him, he never got hurt,
15:58he knew just what to do.
16:01He's duck and cover,
16:04duck and cover.
16:10Here's Tony going to his Cub Scout meeting.
16:13Tony knows the bomb can explode any time of the year,
16:16day or night, he is ready for it.
16:18Duck and cover.
16:21Atta boy, Tony, that flash means act fast.
16:25Tony knows that it helps to get to any kind of cover.
16:32You know how bad sunburn can feel.
16:35The atomic bomb flash could burn you
16:37worse than a terrible sunburn.
16:39It was a mad race that Britain was eager to join.
16:46In 1952, on Montebello Island,
16:4860 miles off the Australian coast,
16:51final sartorial touches were made to the test dummies.
16:54Butter, beef and tea were left out
16:56for contamination experiments,
16:58and the wind was checked
16:58to make sure it was blowing away from the mainland.
17:01The bomb sat on board HMS Plim.
17:08The crew of two had had their supper,
17:10set the timer,
17:11and paddled ashore.
17:15Five, four,
17:17three,
17:17two,
17:18one,
17:19now.
17:20But even as Britain was testing her first atomic bomb,
17:40Soviet and American scientists
17:41had already achieved the next quantum leap
17:43in destructive power.
17:46The thermonuclear hydrogen bomb.
17:50The difference between an atomic bomb
17:54and a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb
17:57is essentially the difference
17:58between fission and fusion.
18:01In fission,
18:01the process involves splitting atoms
18:04of heavy elements,
18:06such as uranium or plutonium,
18:08and that process releases a lot of energy.
18:10The early nuclear weapons were all pure fission devices.
18:14A fusion bomb involves fusing or joining together light atoms,
18:20in particular isotopes of hydrogen,
18:23such as tritium and deuterium,
18:24to form heavier elements.
18:27It's a process that goes on inside the sun.
18:28The potential of the thermonuclear bomb was terrifying,
18:35and within a decade,
18:36Russia had constructed and dropped
18:38the largest bomb ever
18:39to go off on the face of the planet.
18:41It was 5,000 times more powerful
19:03than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
19:05and estimated to be the equivalent
19:06of 60 million tons of TNT.
19:12If a 60-megaton bomb were exploded on the surface
19:16of any city in the world,
19:20it would destroy the entire city
19:21and most of the suburbs.
19:24It would reach out and start fires
19:27at distances as much as 30 miles
19:31from the point of explosion.
19:33It would be a total catastrophe,
19:36and the fallout from it,
19:38depending on what was downwind,
19:40could kill millions and millions of people.
19:43One explosion.
19:45For almost 40 years,
19:47we have lived with the deadly logic of MAD,
19:49mutually assured destruction.
19:52No one would start a war they couldn't win,
19:54and in an all-out nuclear exchange,
19:56no-one wins.
19:58It was one of the ironic cornerstones
19:59of global peace.
20:02Fortunately for the rest of us,
20:04neither of the superpowers
20:05pressed the apocryphal red button of madness,
20:08and in 1991, both America and Russia
20:10started to bring their deadly arsenal
20:12back in from the cold.
20:17Between them,
20:18they had agreed to destroy
20:19more than 50,000 nuclear weapons.
20:22This was to be their final journey
20:24to the scrapyards.
20:26In 1991,
20:39the massive hydraulic presses and crushers
20:41started their work.
20:48The world's press were invited
20:50to watch the destruction of the weapons
20:52we had feared for so long.
20:58For some,
20:59it seemed to be the sad end of an era.
21:01The ex-Soviet forces
21:14were characteristically direct.
21:16They either crushed their missiles
21:18in huge industrial presses,
21:20or they packed them
21:20with a few kilos of plastic explosive
21:22and blasted them to bits.
21:24whilst 8,000 miles away,
21:34the Americans were perfecting
21:36a more surgical technique.
21:38But what the world's press
21:40had been so assiduously filming
21:42was not the destruction
21:43of the atomic warheads,
21:45but simply the demolition
21:46of the empty missile casings.
21:48They had reported the destruction
21:50of the pistols and rifles,
21:52but nobody had said
21:53what was happening
21:54to the nuclear bullets,
21:56the plutonium pits.
21:58The chilling truth is
22:00that this hadn't been
22:01a global scenario
22:02which anyone had expected.
22:04From day one,
22:09when we first produced
22:10plutonium in this country,
22:13we never had an option
22:14for its disposal.
22:16The notion always was
22:17that we were at war.
22:19The production of nuclear warheads
22:21was the key
22:22and the most paramount thing
22:24for this country to achieve.
22:25The disposal option
22:27was always considered
22:28something that would be done
22:29down the road.
22:32But as scientists began to think
22:34about what to do
22:35about this problem,
22:36heavily guarded convoys
22:37containing nuclear warheads
22:39started converging
22:40in central Texas
22:41from missile bases
22:42around the continental USA.
22:45Their destination was
22:47and continues to be
22:48Pantex,
22:49just outside of Amarillo.
22:51For over 40 years,
22:53Pantex has been
22:54the final assembly centre
22:55for most of America's
22:57atomic bombs.
22:58Now those fearful weapons
23:00are coming home,
23:01unused and unwanted,
23:02transported to the biggest
23:03nuclear storage depot
23:05in America.
23:10Pantex is perhaps
23:12the most securely guarded
23:13installation in the world.
23:15Nobody gets in or out
23:16without a thorough search
23:18by heavily armed guards.
23:20Video cameras are
23:21in every corner.
23:23Ground radar
23:23and seismographic detectors
23:25stop even the Texas jackrabbits
23:26from burrowing
23:27under the razor wire fences.
23:28The forest of telegraph poles
23:31are there to stop
23:32uninvited helicopters landing.
23:36Machine gun-toting
23:38armoured trucks
23:38patrol the nuclear storage areas
23:4024 hours a day.
23:42The guards work
23:43for the Department of Energy,
23:45a super-elite private army.
23:51Deep within Pantex,
23:53the missile warheads
23:54and bombs
23:54are carefully unloaded
23:55and taken to the staging area.
24:01Pantex's aim
24:02is to dismantle
24:03between 1,500
24:04and 2,000 warheads a year.
24:06They come in all shapes
24:07and sizes,
24:08from kilotons to megatons,
24:10from bombs
24:10to missiles.
24:13But before anyone
24:14is let loose
24:14with a screwdriver,
24:15the first stage
24:16is to check the weapons
24:17for any problems.
24:19Have they been damaged
24:20or cracked?
24:20or have any
24:21of the safety mechanisms
24:22been tripped
24:23whilst on their fruitless journey
24:24to the front line?
24:26A powerful scanner
24:27checks that the safety systems
24:29are all in place
24:29and that there is no cracking
24:31or corrosion.
24:36If no alarms are sounded,
24:38the bomb is moved
24:39to what used to be known
24:40as the assembly area.
24:41It's inside these gravel gerties,
25:04massive blast-protected bunkers
25:06that the real dismantling
25:07takes place.
25:08The first steps
25:09are quite simple.
25:10The bomb is stripped down
25:11to its constituent parts,
25:13all 6,000 of them.
25:18The complex aiming mechanism
25:20is removed.
25:21Then the bulky parachute assembly.
25:23It's by far the largest part
25:25of most nuclear bombs
25:26and is designed
25:27to give the pilot
25:28a chance of escape
25:29as the weapon falls
25:30towards its target.
25:32The so-called physics package
25:33contains the plutonium warhead.
25:36It and its high explosive casing
25:37are quickly separated
25:39from the rest of the materials
25:40and are removed
25:41to the high security areas
25:42within the Pantex compound.
25:45The bomb's gold and silver connectors
25:47are extractive for recycling,
25:49whilst the remaining plastic
25:50and metal components
25:51are taken and crushed
25:52beyond recognition.
25:54Later, they will be placed
25:55in permanent storage
25:56as low-level radioactive waste.
25:58But the plutonium pit,
26:05the core of the bomb,
26:06is kept intact.
26:08It cannot be crushed
26:09or burnt
26:09or destroyed.
26:11No simple technology
26:12exists for dealing with it
26:13and for the moment
26:14it is to be placed
26:15in temporary storage.
26:17This innocuous-looking metal barrel
26:19is to be the resting place
26:20for the atomic bomb's core.
26:23Surrounded by a cellulose fibre,
26:24the pit is placed inside
26:26and simply canned.
26:36More sophisticated weapons,
26:37such as this Tomahawk warhead,
26:39are subjected
26:40to a battery of further tests.
26:42Inside its stainless steel casing,
26:44the warhead is surrounded
26:45by highly radioactive tritium gas,
26:48the booster component
26:49needed to produce
26:50the fusion explosion.
26:51Any leakage of the gas
26:53would be extremely dangerous.
26:56It is sealed into
26:57one of the most powerful
26:58vacuum chambers in the world.
27:00As the air is pumped out
27:01to within a few millions
27:02of an atmosphere,
27:03the massive pressure differential
27:05means that even microscopic cracks
27:07in the casing will leak
27:08and the gas can be quickly detected.
27:13Once made safe,
27:15the pits are taken out
27:16to the storage area.
27:17Built in 1942
27:18to store conventional munitions
27:20for the Second World War,
27:22these above-ground concrete bunkers
27:24are the current resting place
27:26for the American atomic arsenal.
27:29The barrels containing the pits
27:30are placed into stacks,
27:32known as four- or six-packs.
27:35A sophisticated hydraulic loader,
27:37lead-shielded to protect
27:38the driver from radiation,
27:40gently racks them up
27:41against the walls of the bunkers.
27:42They don't bother with locks
27:49at Pantex.
27:50They simply use a forklift
27:51to place 40-ton concrete blocks
27:53in front of each door.
28:00Once racked inside the bunkers,
28:02the barrels are bar-coded,
28:04like baked beans in a supermarket.
28:06Laser readers regularly track
28:08up and down the rows,
28:09checking that the right numbers
28:10of barrels are still in place
28:12and that there are no
28:13excessive radiation readings,
28:14indicating a crack or damage
28:16to any of the pits.
28:23For the moment,
28:24there's nothing else
28:24that they can do with them.
28:26And until scientists,
28:27environmentalists,
28:28and the government
28:29agree on the next steps,
28:30this is where they will stay.
28:33There are currently
28:337,000 to 8,000 plutonium pits
28:35and storage here,
28:37each one more powerful
28:38than the bombs
28:39that destroy Japan.
28:41They're hoping to fit in
28:4220,000 by the end of the decade.
28:47At the present time,
28:48our objective has been
28:50to dismantle
28:51on the order of 1,500
28:53to 2,000 nuclear weapons
28:54each year.
28:55All of the activities
28:56of the Pantex facility
28:58require very, very high levels
29:00of quality assurance
29:02and safety,
29:03and we've been lucky enough
29:04to have avoided
29:05a serious incident
29:07or accident there.
29:09We have a term
29:10in this country
29:11of six-sigma quality,
29:13i.e. one-in-a-million chance
29:15that something will go wrong,
29:17and certainly,
29:17if there's any place
29:18in our business
29:20that this is critical,
29:22it is at Pantex.
29:24Pantex had a rather
29:25ambitious schedule
29:26to dismantle
29:27nuclear warheads.
29:29They ran into some problems.
29:30They ran into
29:31some transportation vehicle problems,
29:32some safety as to how
29:34the warheads
29:35were being transported.
29:37They also had a release
29:38of a tritium gas
29:39from a nuclear bomb
29:42at the facility.
29:43They also had
29:44a nuclear bomb drop
29:46during one of
29:47dismantling operations.
29:49As a result
29:49of those activities,
29:51they have significantly
29:52reduced the amount
29:53of warheads
29:54that they were processing
29:55and only actually completed
29:5763% of the gold
29:58that they had
29:59for that year.
29:59We think there are
30:00other concerns, however,
30:01at Pantex
30:02that need to be addressed.
30:03Virtually all 17
30:05of the major DOE facilities
30:06that were responsible
30:07for reducing nuclear warheads
30:09are contaminated.
30:11Years ago,
30:12in the early 1980s,
30:14we did some work
30:15at that time
30:16for Senator Glenn
30:16and put a price tag
30:17to clean up
30:18in the tens of billions
30:20of dollars.
30:21Eventually,
30:22the Department of Energy
30:22has increased that estimate
30:24to $100 billion
30:25about five years ago.
30:27Their latest official estimate
30:28puts the price tag
30:29to get $300 billion,
30:31but most agree,
30:33that's probably too low.
30:34It will be significantly
30:35higher than that,
30:36but no one can definitely
30:37say how much it will cost
30:39to clean up
30:40because in many
30:41of these facilities,
30:42we just don't have
30:43the technologies
30:43in place
30:44to remove the contaminants.
30:46So some of these facilities
30:47will probably be contaminated
30:48for hundreds of years
30:50to come.
30:52Plutonium was first produced
30:53in 1941,
30:55the by-product
30:55of uranium decay.
30:56Like all radioactive materials,
30:59it has a half-life,
31:00that is the time
31:01it takes for one half
31:02of a gram of radioactive material
31:04to decay into other elements
31:06and particles.
31:07Now, all of the plutonium
31:09on Earth
31:09is barely 50 years old,
31:11and yet its half-life
31:12is more than 24,000 years,
31:15longer than the recorded
31:16history of civilisation.
31:18To decay completely,
31:20it will take over
31:21a quarter of a million years.
31:23Because of its properties,
31:24both as a weapons component
31:26and as a radioactive contaminant,
31:28it's becoming
31:28the greatest global problem
31:30the superpowers
31:30have ever faced.
31:36Plutonium is a very
31:37dangerous material.
31:38It has two different
31:39types of danger.
31:41One is its toxicity
31:42as a heavy metal.
31:43The other is its
31:44radioactive characteristics.
31:47The chief problem
31:48with plutonium
31:49in the radioactive realm
31:51is the emission
31:52of an alpha particle,
31:53which is a helium nucleus.
31:54Now, this particle
31:56is very heavy
31:57and slow-moving
31:57and doesn't easily
31:58penetrate other materials.
32:00A layer of dead skin cells
32:01will easily stop
32:02an alpha particle.
32:03So plutonium outside the body
32:05is really not a big concern.
32:07Plutonium inside the body,
32:08however,
32:08if it were ingested
32:09or inhaled,
32:11would be a large concern
32:12because this alpha particle
32:13causes ionisation
32:15of cells in the body.
32:16These ionised cells
32:17then can mutate
32:18into cancerous forms
32:19and other materials.
32:20This is what
32:22a microscopic dot
32:23of plutonium looks like
32:24after it has lodged
32:25in the lung of an ape.
32:26The star-shaped tracks
32:27are caused by alpha particles
32:29as they plough
32:30through the cells.
32:31Tests have shown
32:32that to cause cancer
32:33requires just
32:3480 millionths of a gram.
32:36There are now
32:38about 200 tons,
32:41maybe 250,
32:43200,000 kilograms
32:44of plutonium
32:45that have been recently
32:48in nuclear warheads
32:49or are still
32:49in nuclear warheads.
32:52There are about
32:531,000 tons
32:54of highly enriched uranium
32:56associated with
32:59nuclear weapons
32:59throughout the world.
33:00The total number
33:01of nuclear weapons
33:02that include ones
33:04that have already
33:04started to be dismantled
33:06is somewhere
33:07around 60,000.
33:08As we dismantle
33:09the weapons
33:10and take out
33:11the highly enriched uranium
33:13and the plutonium,
33:14big question,
33:15what do we do with it?
33:16This is the quick way
33:35of disposing of plutonium.
33:37It's also the simplest.
33:38From a global
33:39environmental viewpoint,
33:40it's probably also
33:41the safest,
33:42but no one's going
33:43to endorse the routine
33:44detonation
33:44of over 60,000 warheads
33:46in this fashion.
33:47So, now we have
33:49hundreds of tons
33:49of poisonous,
33:51radioactive explosive material
33:52that no one is quite sure
33:54what to do with.
33:55Scientists are currently debating
33:57the options,
33:58the costs,
33:59and the risks.
34:00In a simple-minded way,
34:03there are four choices.
34:05One is use it in fuel,
34:07which many people advocate.
34:09A second is bury it somewhere.
34:15A third is transmute it,
34:19convert it into isotopes
34:22that cannot be used
34:23for making bombs.
34:23and fourth,
34:27put it in space
34:28or dump it in the sun.
34:30If all you want to do
34:31is to stop people
34:32making bombs
34:32out of plutonium,
34:34then vitrification
34:34is a favoured option.
34:36It's a technology
34:37that the Americans
34:37and the British
34:38are developing.
34:40The waste plutonium
34:41is contaminated
34:41with radioactive poisons
34:43to stop anyone attempting
34:44to recover it in the future,
34:46and then fuse with silica
34:47to produce a molten glass.
34:50The highly radioactive glass
34:51is sealed
34:52into steel canisters.
34:53remote probes
34:59cover every square centimetre
35:00of the casing,
35:01checking for any leakage.
35:03Once cleared,
35:04the canisters are transported
35:05to permanent storage areas.
35:08So far,
35:08they've only been able
35:09to develop this procedure
35:10for reactor waste.
35:12No one has yet been able
35:13to successfully vitrify
35:14weapons-grade plutonium.
35:17If and when they do,
35:18it will have to be stored away
35:19from any natural
35:20or man-made disturbance
35:21for a quarter of a million years.
35:23You've got to be very sure
35:29that over the many, many years
35:33that the material
35:33is in the ground
35:34or buried
35:35or in some sort of a geologic site,
35:40that the materials
35:42that are encapsulating
35:44the plutonium
35:45and the poisons
35:46that have been inserted
35:47in the plutonium
35:47don't all drop away
35:49and that over many,
35:52many thousands of years
35:53what you'll have
35:54is an accumulating deposit
35:56of pure plutonium.
35:59The Russians, however,
36:00have little intention
36:01of throwing away
36:02what they see
36:03as a valuable resource.
36:04I can say,
36:11that maybe
36:12those American colleagues
36:13who think
36:14that it's not a good
36:17to anyone's outburst
36:18are not in the sense
36:21of the difficulty,
36:23of the huge work
36:24that people
36:25put in the production
36:26in the production
36:28of plutonium.
36:30In my opinion,
36:31plutonium
36:31is the same
36:32as a national wealth,
36:34as gold,
36:36as gold,
36:36as gold,
36:37as gold,
36:37as gold,
36:38as other gold
36:40as gold.
36:41In this material,
36:43plutonium,
36:43is a huge human work.
36:46Many people
36:46have lost their health,
36:48lost their lives
36:49and consider it
36:50some sort of loss,
36:51but it's just
36:52a lack of respect
36:53to those people
36:54who put in this life.
36:57And the Russians
36:58are right.
36:59Plutonium can be used
37:00as a nuclear fuel
37:01to generate power.
37:04Tiny quantities
37:05of pure weapons-grade plutonium
37:07are mixed with
37:08low-grade uranium
37:09to produce a fuel
37:10known as MOX,
37:11mixed oxide.
37:13But it's a difficult
37:15and expensive procedure.
37:16And Russia
37:17will need massive investment
37:18to be able to safely
37:19convert their reactors
37:20to burn MOX as a fuel.
37:22Even then,
37:23it's a long way
37:24from being a complete solution.
37:28Mixed oxide reactors
37:30certainly would not be
37:32the answer
37:34to getting rid
37:35of plutonium completely.
37:39If you went
37:40the mixed oxide route
37:41and you wanted
37:42to get rid of the plutonium,
37:44you would have to keep
37:45reprocessing the spent fuel
37:47as it came out
37:48of the reactors.
37:49In other words,
37:49you'd have a mixed oxide fuel,
37:52you'd put it in the reactor,
37:54burn the fuel
37:55in the reactor,
37:56withdraw the fuel elements,
37:58and then move
37:59the fuel elements
38:00back to a reprocessing plant,
38:02extract the remaining plutonium,
38:05mix it with uranium,
38:07and then stick it back
38:07in the reactors again
38:08as a mixed oxide fuel.
38:10So you'd have to keep
38:11recirculating
38:12the mixed oxide fuel elements
38:15to essentially get rid
38:16of the plutonium
38:17after many, many cycles.
38:20So in a way,
38:22the mixed oxide fuel
38:24as a once-through fuel
38:26certainly would not
38:27get rid of plutonium.
38:29In spite of the problems,
38:30Japan has also been keen
38:32to exploit plutonium as a fuel.
38:34Conscious of the bad name
38:35plutonium had acquired
38:36over the years,
38:37the Ministry of Atomic Power
38:39created a cartoon character,
38:41Pluto Boy.
38:44Hello, everyone.
38:46I am Pluto Boy,
38:48made from plutonium.
38:49It's nice to meet you all.
38:52The reason I am doing this
38:54is because I feel
38:56there are many people out there
38:58who think of plutonium
39:00as a big, bad monster.
39:07Let's say some bad guys
39:10decided to throw me
39:11into a reservoir.
39:12Not only am I difficult
39:13to dissolve in water,
39:15but because I am heavy,
39:17almost all of me
39:18would just sink
39:19to the bottom of the water.
39:21And if by some chance
39:23I were swallowed
39:24in a mixture of water,
39:25almost none of me
39:26would be absorbed
39:27by the stomach intestines
39:28and I would leave the body.
39:31The cartoon was withdrawn
39:33when the Japanese Minister
39:35for Atomic Power
39:35was asked to drink
39:37a glass of plutonium-laced water
39:38on public television.
39:40He declined.
39:45At a small desert town
39:47in Nevada,
39:48an international conference
39:49of nuclear physicists
39:50met to discuss
39:51another expensive gamble,
39:53transmutation.
39:56There are analogies
39:57in terms of the gambling world.
39:59People say,
39:59well, this is a long shot,
40:01this is a big gamble.
40:01We think it's a sure bet
40:03in terms of being able
40:04to develop technology
40:06to destroy plutonium
40:08and transmute nuclear waste.
40:10And so what we envision
40:11at Los Alamos
40:12is a development program
40:14extending over 15 years,
40:17funded or requiring funding
40:20at a level of some tens
40:22of million dollars per year
40:24to actually demonstrate
40:26the technology and so on.
40:27So it's not a trivial investment.
40:30Maybe the total investment
40:31may be a half a billion dollars.
40:34And this is what
40:35they're betting on.
40:36It's the alchemist's dream,
40:38a machine that does
40:39the 20th century equivalent
40:40of turning lead into gold.
40:42It destroys plutonium
40:44with subatomic bullets.
40:46Simply take a hydrogen atom,
40:48consisting of a proton
40:49with an electron spinning
40:50around it,
40:51and strip the electron off.
40:53Fire the proton
40:54into a linear accelerator,
40:55and its positive charge
40:57causes it to be pushed forward
40:58in the front of an electric field
40:59like a surfer riding a wave.
41:03Three quarters of a mile
41:04down the pipe,
41:05it's accelerated
41:05to almost the speed of light.
41:08The proton then smashes
41:09into a block of lead
41:10at the far end,
41:11producing a shower of neutrons
41:12that are absorbed
41:13into the waste plutonium,
41:15breaking it into short-lived
41:16or more stable elements.
41:18It is in effect
41:18a very slow,
41:19very controlled atomic bomb.
41:22The initial experiments
41:23seem to be working,
41:24but even optimists
41:25say that the procedure
41:26is 15 years away
41:27from being a viable process,
41:29and pessimists
41:30say that could double.
41:43My own work
41:44has focused on dumping plutonium
41:47in the sun.
41:48The first objection
41:51that one hears
41:52from anybody
41:53to whom that's suggested
41:54is, well,
41:55what do you do
41:55about something like
41:56an explosion
41:56of the Challenger?
41:58You can't design things
42:00so that there won't be
42:01launch failures,
42:03and if you have
42:04a launch failure
42:05and you're carrying
42:0510 tons of plutonium,
42:09you'd have
42:09a global catastrophe.
42:10that's much too superficial.
42:16And there has been
42:17quite a lot of work done
42:18on, for example,
42:20crash-proof containers
42:22which could stand
42:23the highest velocity impact
42:26that is possible
42:27according to the laws
42:28of physics.
42:29I think there's
42:33a good chance,
42:34no guarantee,
42:35a good chance
42:35that it will begin
42:36to look more attractive
42:38than burying it
42:39in Nevada
42:39or extracting
42:42plutonium
42:43in a form
42:43which, as long as
42:44it's extracted,
42:45can be used
42:45in nuclear weapons
42:46or trying
42:48to transmute it.
42:50I think all those things
42:51need to be looked at.
42:53In the meantime,
42:54the question is,
42:55what do we do?
42:56It's a question
42:57to which there is
42:58no answer,
42:58and in the meantime,
43:00the plutonium pits
43:01sit in their barrels.
43:02There is no international
43:03or even national policy
43:05for plutonium disposal.
43:06Each proposed solution
43:07creates its own problems.
43:09And now,
43:10we've got to pay for it.
43:13You know,
43:15according to the agreement
43:16of the Sv2
43:16in 2003,
43:18there should be
43:20in Russia
43:21and the United States
43:22and every country
43:23more than 3,5 thousand
43:25nuclear weapons.
43:26There are a lot of
43:28and there is a lot of
43:29and there is a lot of
43:30can be found in the atom-podcasts, 3,5 thousand.
43:37And the arsenal of these countries has 10 years
43:41over 10 years ago, let's say, this number.
43:44So, the problem of the nuclear weapons,
43:48the damage of nuclear weapons is not only very difficult,
43:52but it requires colossal cost.
43:55I call this number, that the damage of one nuclear weapons
43:59It costs about $30,000 to $100,000, for one.
44:03And they need to dismantle them for a few tens of thousands.
44:08With an unstable economy and a lack of hard currency,
44:11Russia and the ex-Eastern Bloc countries are in a nuclear limbo.
44:20Radioactive waste sites outside of Mamanso are badly contaminated
44:24and barely guarded.
44:29There are nuclear reactors in desperate need of repair and modernisation.
44:43A sunken submarine, with its warheads still in place, lies at the bottom of the Barents Sea.
45:03Already, nuclear material has, to use the government euphemism, started to be diverted.
45:09In Brest, western France, smuggled uranium was recovered by the police.
45:13And only a few months ago, 350 grams of plutonium were seized in Germany.
45:27Fissile material is now for sale on the open market.
45:31But perhaps most frighteningly, it's not just the bombs plutonium that we need to worry about.
45:37Much of the recently smuggled material appears to have come not from atomic weapons,
45:41but from civilian reactors.
45:43A uranium fuel rod in a reactor's core decays into a variety of by-products,
45:48one of which is plutonium.
45:50As the reactor runs, the plutonium builds up, contaminating the fuel rods.
45:55Here in Britain, at Thorpe, the thermal oxide reprocessing plant in Sellafield,
46:00waste plutonium is extracted from spent fuel rods,
46:03allowing them to be recycled and returned to the reactors.
46:07It's a commercial service they offer to those countries that use nuclear power for peaceful purposes,
46:13and they hope to be extracting around five to six tons of plutonium a year by the end of the century.
46:23There are over 250 tons of weapons-grade plutonium in the world,
46:27but already there are over 1,000 tons of civilian reactor-grade.
46:31Although it's an inevitable consequence of running an atomic reactor,
46:35there are those who prefer not to acknowledge the dangers of reactor-grade plutonium.
46:43It was a question posed in the House of Lords only last year to Baroness Chocker.
46:48Could the noble Baroness confirm that under part B of this wearisimely repetitious question
46:54that reprocessed plutonium from commercially-operated power stations
46:59is not suitable for weapons manufacturing?
47:02To the best of my knowledge, my Lords, that is so.
47:06And may I also say that we are extremely careful in any question concerning reprocessing,
47:13be it of plutonium or other dangerous substances.
47:17But if that question had been posed to a nuclear scientist,
47:20then the answer would have been somewhat different.
47:23There's no such thing as safe plutonium from the standpoint of constructing a fissile weapon or fission weapon.
47:30Reactor-grade plutonium can and has been used to construct a fission weapon.
47:34From that standpoint, all plutonium has to be considered a risk in terms of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
47:41It was just recently revealed by the U.S. government that it was British plutonium that was used in a test in 1962
47:48to determine that so-called reactor-grade plutonium, the kind of plutonium that comes out of a commercial nuclear power plant,
47:54could be used in a bomb.
47:56And therefore, it's rather remarkable that the British government only last year was saying in defense of the decision to start up Thorpe that,
48:03and I'll quote,
48:05it is not the government's policy to give further information on this or to comment on the details of any nuclear weapons test
48:12which may be alleged to have been carried out, unquote.
48:17Now obviously the British government knew at that time that it was their plutonium that was used by the U.S.
48:23to determine that reactor-grade plutonium could be used in a bomb.
48:27And therefore, one has to question the sincerity and the truthfulness of that statement.
48:33The problem is that in Britain and in France, the general public has not been fully informed of the risks involved in the commercial plutonium program.
48:44Out there in spent fuel pools associated with about 400 nuclear power plants distributed worldwide
48:54is enough radioactive materials so that if that were bombed with a nuclear weapon, for example, downwind,
49:03it could cause fallout on a scale that I think would be fair to call, in some cases, continental.
49:14When these paragliding protesters landed in a Swiss nuclear power plant, they were carrying only banners.
49:20And as Ted Taylor says, let's hope that is all they ever carry.
49:24One can imagine, and I don't want to go into this in any detail,
49:27one can imagine scenarios in which a few terrorists could trigger a result
49:33which could be the biggest catastrophe ever suffered by human beings.
49:40We can't have that.
49:43Plutonium is named after the god of hell.
49:49And I think it is well named.
49:52A selection of videos from the Equinox series is now available in the shops.
50:16Troubles brewing.
50:39Hotter than the surface of the sun, when it stirs the very air around it burns.
50:45With power to create and destroy, its beauty is quite literally striking.
50:52Record.
50:53Man, did you see that one?
50:55Entice.
50:56Fly through.
50:59Electric Skies, Equinox, next Sunday at 7 on 4.
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