Matthew Wald of the New York Times reports that by failing to coordinate between the two United States government agencies controlling the supplies and demand for our rare Helium-3, we now have insufficient stocks for our crucial nuclear weapons detection technology. So our scientists are urgently trying to develop a replacement technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/...?
The United States is running out of a rare gas that is crucial for detecting smuggled nuclear weapons materials because one arm of the Energy Department was selling the gas six times as fast as another arm could accumulate it, and the two sides failed to communicate for years, according to a new Congressional audit.
The gas, helium-3, is a byproduct of the nuclear weapons program, but as the number of nuclear weapons has declined, so has the supply of the gas. Yet, as the supply was shrinking, the government was investing more than $200 million to develop detection technology that required helium-3.
According to the Government Accountability Office report, the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which gathers the gas from old nuclear weapons, never told the department’s Isotope Program about the slowing rate of helium-3 production. That is in part because it was secret information that could be used to calculate the size of weapon stockpiles.
But, while one department assumed we had abundant, near infinite supplies, the actual production levels were classified, as part of the culture of secrecy around everything to do with our nuclear weapons program. So, no mechanism existed to coordinate, plan, or respond to changing circumstances.
For its part, the Isotope Program calculated demand for the gas not in a scientific way but instead on the basis of how many commercial companies called to inquire each year about helium-3 supplies.
Representative Donna Edwards of Maryland characterized the situation as “gross mismanagement.”
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“With so much riding on helium-3, it is shocking to learn that the department’s forecast for demand is based simply on a telephone log tracking those who called asking about the availability of helium-3,” she said.
The Department of Energy has acknowleged this "bureaucratic fumble" and has moved the two seperate branches under the management of the science division, for better future coordination.
But, now, we have insuffient Helium-3, for our current nuclear weapons detection program. "The neutrons given off by plutonium and uranium are hard to detect, but when helium-3 is hit by a stray neutron, it creates a charged particle, which is readily detected and measured."
From 2003 to 2009, the Isotope Program was selling the gas at a rate of about 30,000 liters a year, while the weapons program was producing only 8,000 to 10,000 liters, the accountability office found.
The Energy Department and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, have produced various isotopes for commercial and governmental use for decades.
Helium-3, once considered a waste product, is produced by the radioactive decay of tritium, a form of hydrogen used in nuclear weapons to increase the yield. But the United States stopped producing tritium in 1988 because of safety problems at the reactors that made it.
The Energy and Homeland Security Departments “built large, multibillion-dollar programs around an assumed endless supply” of helium-3, according to a staff report from the House science committee.
But after signing contracts to supply helium-3 to oil and gas companies, and other commercial uses, this reduction in our tritium production caused a severe shortage for our nuclear weapons detection equipment.
"Steven Aoki, the deputy under secretary of energy for counterterrorism," is optimistic that "new technologies using more readily available materials would be ready in a year or two."
This story illustrates the hidden cost, of excessive secrets, as the article explains that part of the reason for this lack of communication was that our government classified the supply data for Helium-3, because it could be used to calculate the rate we were producing weapons grade fissle material.
With open communications, and access to data, and organization, or government can not perceive, diagnose, plan, learn, and change, in a changing environment.
Or, as my friend Arie De Gues says, "the only sustainable competitive advantage we can every attain is the ability to learn faster than our competitors, and change in the environment."