Plutonium-239 (Pu-239) is a nuclear fuel source that should play an important role in a sustainable, rapidly growing nuclear power enterprise. It is a natural byproduct that is created inside every fission reactor using uranium fuel. It is fissile with characteristics that are similar to U-235, the fissile material that provides most of today’s nuclear power.

During the 1960s and into the 1970s, energy visionaries spoke and wrote about a coming Plutonium Economy that would gradually replace the existing Hydrocarbon Economy and give human society an inexhaustible fuel source. //

It’s easy to imagine that people whose wealth and power came from the Hydrocarbon Economy weren’t thrilled about the near-term prospect of having their comfortable lives disrupted by a powerful new competitor.

A sustained campaign aimed at demonizing plutonium began sometime in the early 1970s. Plutonium has been called the most toxic substance known to man. //

Jack Devanney says:
August 3, 2023 at 3:03 PM

Excellent post.

I would add that a combination of thorium and plutonium is pretty useless as a weapon.

In ThorCon’s case, we found that even if you pulled the fuel out at the ideal point when the plutonium was 94% Pu-239, as long as the fuel contained 10 times as much thorium as Pu-239, it would not go critical. no matter how much Pu you had. Thorium soaks up neutrons. To make a weapon from this stuff , you would need a Thorex plant which is even more difficult than a Purex plant.

The tragedy is with no HALEU, designs like ThorCon cannot spike the fuel with thorium and we lose this safeguard.