Category: Plutonium

Nuclear Weapon, Plutonium, Rocky Flats PlantBy E.Fermi

Colorado’s Nuclear Weapons Factory

In late 1948 massive forces of Soviet tanks and armed forces lined up in Eastern Europe facing a diminished and war-wearied Allied defenses. Stalin continued to amass combat forces and materiel that the Soviet military had prepared for a World War III. Stalin had been planning this offensive as he fought alongside Allied Forces during World War II. He was waiting for the moment that his increasingly powerful armies could sweep through Western Europe and initiate his visionary communist world domination. All Stalin needed to do was to give the order for his armored divisions to begin their rapid advance through Western Europe. There was only one thing deterring Stalin: the U.S. had a nuclear arsenal. And they had proven […]

Plutonium, RadioactivityBy E.Fermi

Quest for Plutonium

Edwin McMillian and Glenn Seaborg had discovered element 93, named neptunium, in 1940 at the University of California, Berkeley and Seaborg continued researching after McMillan was persuaded to leave to do research in radar technology. Seaborg and his collaborators found that neptunium underwent beta decay to form element 94 that, as mentioned previously, Seaborg named plutonium in February 1941. Research on the new element determined that plutonium 239 was fissile, and plutonium’s role in the quest for developing a weapon began. Seaborg began the task of determining how plutonium could be separated from the uranium at the University of Chicago, and the foundation began to be developed for the technology used in the giant chemical separation facilities that would eventually […]

Plutonium, RadioactivityBy E.Fermi

Natural Plutonium

Let’s start at the beginning, which, in the case of Rocky Flats, is about 4.5 billion years ago. The Rocky Flats Plant was known mostly for its role in producing plutonium components for nuclear weapons. Those of us who worked there knew that the plant did much more than that; many thousands of people who worked at the plant never came close to any plutonium. However, plutonium is what comes to mind for most people when they think of Rocky Flats. Activists who devoted themselves to protesting the place learned that they created more support against the plant when they focused on plutonium, and they began to declare that “plutonium was designed to kill.” That’s a very catchy phrase, but […]