Closing the circle on the splitting of the atom: The environmental legacy of nuclear weapons production in the United States and what the Department of Energy is doing about it

Technical Report · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/224244· OSTI ID:224244

In the grand scheme of things we are a little more than halfway through the cycle of splitting the atom for weapons purposes. If we visualize this historic cycle as the full sweep of a clockface, at zero hour we would find the first nuclear chain reaction by Enrico Fermi, followed immediately by the Manhattan Project and the explosion of the first atomic bombs. From two o`clock until five, the United States built and ran a massive industrial complex that produced tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. At half past, the Cold War ended, and the United States shut down most of its nuclear weapons factories. The second half of this cycle involves dealing with the waste and contamination from nuclear weapons production - a task that had, for the most part, been postponed into the indefinite future. That future is now upon us. Dealing with the environmental legacy of the Cold War is in many ways as big a challenge for us today as the building of the atomic bomb was for the Manhattan Project pioneers in the 1940s. Our challenges are political and social as well as technical, and we are meeting those challenges. We are reducing risks, treating wastes, developing new technologies, and building democratic institutions for a constructive debate on our future course.

• Research Organization: USDOE Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management, Washington, DC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• OSTI ID: 224244
• Report Number(s): DOE/EM--0266; ON: DE96009985; NC: NONE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NUCLEAR WEAPONS DISMANTLEMENT
PLUTONIUM
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
SPENT FUEL STORAGE
US DOE