There's perhaps no better example of how much the world has changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago and the end of the Cold Ware shortly thereafter, than the following: an American flips a switch to turn on a light in his or her home and the power came from where? The Soviet Union.
That's right: from the Soviet Union. Unknown to many Americans, about 10% of the electricity in the United States is generated by fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Soviet-era ones, The New York Times reported. Today, 45% of the fuel in American nuclear reactors stems from former Russian bomb material.
In fact, during the past two decades, U.S. government/Russia program to dilute Soviet-era, weapons-grade uranium to fuel grade has been an integral part of the U.S. electric industry, The Times reported. U.S. utility companies have not publicized this reality of their operations, presumably because there would be some negative connotation attached to it. Treaties at the end of the Cold War called for the decommissioning of thousands of nuclear warheads in Russia and the U.S.
What's more, the two countries are negotiating new agreements to continue to convert Russia's unneeded uranium from warheads likely to be taken out of service in the years ahead.
Energy Analysis: The above is a needed, and thoroughly appropriate use of material from decommissioned nuclear warheads. Now if the United States can just get its act together regarding the building of nuclear power plants to help meet the nation's power needs: we could use about 100 more plants, but probably won't build half that in the next 20 years.
Why is gold marching higher? Ask the central bankers
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-11-2009 @ 5:35AM
MyKisa said...
....we won`t need no stinkin electricty, we will work the government fields until just before dark and we will return to our barracks for slop and sleep until it is time to earn our tax payment, at dawn
11-11-2009 @ 12:43AM
ij70 said...
Finally some good news.
11-17-2009 @ 9:21PM
Bill said...
Since our government will subsidize building 100 new nuclear energy plants within the next two (2) years in order to decrease our foreign debt, I guess we now know the rest of the story. It is just another government "give-away" to a powerful corporate lobby, and cloaked for public consumption. Isn't it shocking to see the complicity of the "free press" with government propaganda?