Plutonium Quotations

Nor are we the culmination of evolution, except in the sense that there has never been another species so bizarrely ingenious that it could create both iambic pentameter and plutonium.

If the five or six bombs' worth of plutonium they are sitting on ends up going into nuclear weapons, then I think we are really reaching a watershed moment where the U.S., its troops in the region and its allies are threatened by a nuclear North Korea, with, I think, very significant regional and global consequences.

Our nuclear fission reactors operate like a slow A bomb, splitting heavy plutonium or uranium atoms into smaller elements and giving off power.

There are Russian intelligence reports that a considerable amount of plutonium was smuggled to North Korea in the 1992 timeframe,

We seem to have forgotten our workers. We seem to have forgotten to tell them that they may have been contaminated with plutonium -- that was wrong,

What is pretty clear is that we will be faced with the specter of another nuclear power which can use their weapons to threaten South Korea, to threaten Japan . . . with every prospect that they will sell some of that plutonium and nuclear bombs to the highest bidder so they might end up in American cities as well.

Every day that goes on, the amount of plutonium theoretically can increase, so that's our concern. That means that we have a bigger problem than when we ended on Sept. 19. And I think the time to stop reprocessing, the time to stop that reactor, is now.

Space technology can and does fail. When you mix plutonium into the equation, we think you're asking for trouble. It's not theoretical. It's real.

Back in the 70s it was plutonium from a Canadian reactor that India used in its first nuclear explosion and in 1998 it shocked the world with a series of nuclear bomb tests." ()

This policy represents a major modification of the ambitious Bush axis doctrine. From being implacably opposed two years ago to any form of concession or reward to a recidivist violator of agreements, the US is now prepared to contemplate compensation and diplomatic recognition. North Korea is even free to reprocess further plutonium at its Yongbyon facilities, at least until the next six-party talks in November.

There is no way this exercise makes us feel safer or happier about weapons of mass destruction travelling on our roads. However much you practice for eventualities the brute fact remains that transporting plutonium alongside high explosive is simply madness. This government is determined to take any risks to maintain its genocidal nuclear weapons.

Inhaling uranium or plutonium is very dangerous and these kinds of radiation only hurt you when they're inside the body; they don't hurt you when they're outside.

Because the plutonium that would be produced in this project would be used for national security purposes, we believe it would be eligible for disposal outside the state of Idaho.

Plutonium has a quite extraordinary relationship with people. They made it, and it kills them.

We know North Korea has the plutonium that can go into the bomb,

Chips of plutonium are twinkling in every lung,

I, who had been in favour of nuclear energy for generating electricity ... I suddenly realised that anybody who has a nuclear reactor can extract the plutonium from the reactor and make nuclear weapons, so that a country which has a nuclear reactor can, at any moment that it wants to, become a nuclear weapons power. And I, right from the beginning, have been terribly worried by the existence of nuclear weapons and very much against their use.

What's all this fuss about plutonium? How can something named after a Disney character be dangerous?

My job was to produce plutonium that was used for atomic bomb.

The concept of this so-called "TerraPower reactor" is that you, in the same reactor, you both burn and breed. So, instead of making plutonium and then extracting it, we take uranium - the 99.3 percent that you normally don't do anything with - we convert that, and we burn it.

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.