US produces first non-weapons-grade plutonium in 25 years

Discovery News : It has been 25 years since the Department of Energy closed the Savannah River Site , the last source of non-weapons-grade plutonium-238 in the US. Since then, the US has been using up its stockpiles and obtaining plutonium through trade with Russia. The deal with Russia ended in 2010, however. Beginning in the 1970s, NASA used plutonium-238 to supplement solar panels as a power source in spacecraft, including probes such as Voyager 1 and 2 , Galileo , and Cassini , and the Martian landers Viking and Curiosity . After the end of the trade deal with Russia, DOE and NASA began working to redevelop a plutonium production system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory . The agencies believe that the process of irradiating neptunium in the reactors at the laboratory will produce roughly 1.5 kg of plutonium-238 every year. The newly produced plutonium will then be mixed with the remaining stockpile, which will restore the older plutonium to a usable property density. So for every 1 kg of new production, 2 kg of the stockpile will be revived. NASA already intends to use plutonium in its next Martian rover, planned for launch in 2020.