Creation and Future Legacy of Stockpile Stewardship: Isotope Production, Application, and Consumption

Author:  James Hylko & Randell Salyer
ISBN:  9780944838884      ISBN10:  094483888X
Published:  1999 | 285 pp | Softcover

Price:   $ 35.95


  
  




The Physicist  |  May/June 1999


“This book is the Proceedings of the Health Physics Society Topical Meeting held in Albuquerque, USA, earlier this year. It was mainly concerned with maintaining stockpiles of nuclear weapons and producing radioisotopes, topics which reflect the activities of the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories not far from the conference site.

“The USA maintains its stockpile of nuclear warheads by replacing component parts. Papers in this proceedings describe proposals for accelerator production of tritium, difference in how the USA and Russia maintain their stockpiles and the program to convert 500 tonnes of Russian high enrichment (weapons grade) uranium to much lower enrichment reactor grade uranium.

“For radioisotope production, the ACRR research reactor at Sandia National Laboratory is now being modified for production of molybdenum-99, the precursor to technetium-99m widely used in radiopharmaceuticals. Sandia will become a supplier of molybdenum-99 to the domestic US market

“Also of interest are the emergency arrangements for the launch of the Cassini mission, which contained 32.7 kg of plutonium-238.

“These proceedings are timely, contain interesting papers and are suitable for libraries of organisations involved in radiation protection.”

John Harries

Environmental Division

ANSTO