Timeline for Can we power things (like cars or similar rovers) on earth in the same way Perseverance generates power?
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| Feb 26, 2021 at 15:20 | comment | added | PM 2Ring | Plutonium's high toxicity is primarily due to its radioactivity. It doesn't appear to be more chemically toxic, per se, than other heavy metals. OTOH, if it does get into the body in a soluble form, it can be concentrated in the liver & bones, which is certainly bad. See chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/137129 | |
| Feb 26, 2021 at 15:17 | comment | added | PM 2Ring | Plutonium-238 is not a fission fuel. It can be bombarded with neutron to transmute it into Pu-239, which is fissile, but separating out the Pu-239 is impractical (i.e., much harder than separating U-235 from natural uranium). The bombardment also converts some of the Pu-239 to Pu-240, which is undesirable for weapons grade material. See & Harper's answer for more details. You could put Pu-238 in a conventional bomb to make a dirty bomb, but it'd have a very limited effect unless the plutonium dust were inhaled or otherwise ingested. | |
| Feb 25, 2021 at 1:37 | history | answered | TheEnvironmentalist | CC BY-SA 4.0 |