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Plutonium Wastes from the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: 7 July (2010)

Author	R.Alvarez, Institute for Policy Studies
	-
Date	July 2010
Classification	3.01.5.30/44 (UNITED STATES - GENERAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANTS + CLEAN UP)
Front

Plutonium Wastes from the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex

by Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies, 
Washington, D.C. July 7, 2010

Summary

Characterization of radioactive wastes at nuclear weapons sites can reduce fissile 
material uncertainties necessary for deep nuclear arms reductions while serving to 
protect the human environment. In this regard, a preliminary estimate based on 
waste characterization data indicates that from 1944 to 2009 about 12.7 metric tons 
of plutonium was discarded at U.S. nuclear weapon production facilities. This is 
more than three times than the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) last official 
estimate of waste losses (3.4 tons) made in 1996. Of the 12.7 tons, about:

 2.7 tons in high-level radioactive wastes are stored as liquids in tanks and as 
granulated material in bins on the sites of former U.S. military reprocessing plants;
 7.9 tons are in solid waste, which DOE plans to dispose at the Waste Isolation 
Pilot Project (WIPP) a geological repository in New Mexico for transuranic wastes. 
About half is already emplaced; and
 2.1 tons are in solid and liquid wastes buried in soil prior to 1970 or held up in 
facilities at several DOE sites. The DOE considers most of this plutonium to be 
permanently disposed.

The dramatic increase from the DOE’s 1996 waste estimate appears to be due to: 
reclassification as waste of process residues originally set aside for plutonium 
recovery for weapons; underestimates of production losses; and improvements 
in waste characterization data.

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