Ten facts about nuclear weapons and the "Megatons to Megawatts" program

Friday again!

This week that means Bergen, and as (almost) always that means FACTS. This week I want to give you ten facts about nuclear weapons and the "Megatons to Megawatts" project - a little "taster" of what my talk tomorrow will be about (I don't know if there will be a live stream yet, but at least the entire confernce will be filmed, and go on-line later - I will of course share the link when it's ready ;) )

1. nuclear weapons have been used against humans two times; Hiroshima August 6th and Nagasaki August 9th, 1945 - hopefully NEVER again
2. both "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" were fission bombs (getting their energy from fission); "Little Boy" was made of highly enriched uranium (uranium-235), and "Fat Man" was made of plutonium(-239)
3. after WWII a nuclear arms race begun between the US and the Sovjet Union, and at one time there were more than 60 000 nuclear weapons in the world
4. a nuclear weapon is ugly, but by mixing the fissile material in it with uranium or thorium, it can be changed into beautiful nuclear fuel (100% normal nuclear fuel for normal reactors) <3
5. the "Megatons to Megawatts" program was an agreement between US and Sovjet/Russia that lasted from 1993 to 2013, where Sovjet made fuel out of their weapons (unfortunately not all of them) and US bought it
6. during those 20 years (1993-2013), 500 tonnes of highly enriched uranium, from 20 000 Russian nuclear weapons have been converted into nuclear fuel and "burned" in reactors (more than 2 weapons destroyed every day!)
7. the electricity generated from these weapons is the same amount as all the electricity in the US in two years(!)
8. weapons uranium (highly enriched uranium) could be mixed with natural uranium to make fuel (as has been done in the program) - or, even better, with thorium
9. if you mix weapons uranium with thorium, you can also recycle the spent fuel; this means that not only do you get rid of horrible weapons, you also get rid of a lot of nuclear waste (WIN WIN :D )
10. today there are around 16 000 nuclear weapons in the world - much better than 65 000 (or whatever the peak number was), but still that's definitely 16 000 too many...:/

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(I bite my lip when I concentrate - haha)

 Now I'm soon off to NHH, where the conference tomorrow will be held, for sound check, and just "feel" the stage. And when I come back to the hotel again, Anders will be here! I'm so incredibly happy he could join me here in Bergen this weekend!!! We're here until Sunday afternoon, so hopefully we'll have time to actually experience something while we're here - any recommendations from my readers?

Anyway: happy weekend to everyone <3