Quantities of Transuranic Elements 

 in the Environment from Operations 

 Relating to Nuclear Weapons 



GORDON FACER 



Only nuclear explosions near or above the earth 's surface or under water have contributed 

 substantial amounts of transuranic materials to the world bioenvironment. The amounts 

 of transuranics placed in the environment through underground test ventings, accidents 

 involving U. S. nuclear weapons, and releases during weapon production operations have 

 been negligible in comparison with those from atmospheric testing of nuclear explosives. 

 On the order of 10^ Ci of plutonium has been dispersed within our environment from 

 about 400 nuclear explosive tests, including those by the United States, Great Britain, 

 and Russia, between 1945 and 1963, plus more recent nuclear explosive tests in the 

 atmosphere by China, India, and France. 



The main source of transuranic material, particularly plutonium, presently in the human 

 environment, other than that which occurs in nature (Meyers and Lindner, 1971), is 

 nuclear weapons.* Weapons testing in the atmosphere since 1945 has distributed by far 

 the largest part of the existing transuranic inventory throughout the world. However, 

 smaller amounts of transuranic materials have reached the environment as the result of 

 accidents, both real and simulated, with nuclear weapons and of releases of transuranic 

 materials during weapon development and fabrication operations. It must be assumed 

 that other countries have had releases of transuranic materials comparable to those for 

 which the United States was responsible. 



All U. S. weapons explosions in atmospheric or near-surface (ground or water) 

 environments took place between 1945 and September 1963. The United States, Great 

 Britain, and Russia joined in terminating atmospheric testing when the Limited Test Ban 

 Treaty was established in September 1963. Only China, India, and France (not parties to 

 the Limited Test Ban Treaty) have continued testing nuclear explosives in the atmosphere 

 since the 1963 date. 



The quantities of transuranics released to the environment from nuclear testing are 

 somewhat uncertain. First, the amounts of transuranics that have been placed within test 

 devices and the numbers of such devices that have been tested are topics that have been 

 closely held by the respective testing countries. Second, even if we knew the amount of 

 materials in each specific test device, there would be no accurate means for determining 

 the amount oi material that may have reached the environment from the detonation of 

 those devices. Some undisclosed amount of the transuranic material was expended in the 



*F()r this discussion, the term "nuclear weapons" is used to mean all nuclear explosives, including 

 some designed for peaceful applications. 



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