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To some extent we are radioactive material on the surface streets of the major cities, because we have consumed soil!! Even our steel tools can be somewhat radioactive, refinement concentrates point sources. However, containment vessels like that are usually for refined ores, which end up in reactors, smoke detectors, medical devices, radiotherapy machines, you name it. Too expensive and possibly hazardous to airlift. As far as I know, production of atomic weapons has stopped in this country and we're not even sure if they still work (half-lives--they rot). Could've been materiel for a stewardship program at the Hanford Site, or waste being evacuated from the Hanford Site. Generally speaking, the remaining atoms transported and transmuted are for peace. That's why Russia brokers Uranium to the States, and why people in Kazakhstan and elsewhere continue to mine fissile ore. If you were to shut down the remaining fission plants of Planet Earth, civilization as we know it, would end almost immediately, such is our need for these fuels. It would not be pretty--consider the amount of electric heat, the number of electric stoves with 50+ year duty lifetimes. That's why Japan recycles spent fuel at the French reactor. |