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If this paper (that none of us can ever see) really included the plutonium in that BOM then it would be interesting to know how he derived a price for it, since it's not really a openly traded commodity.

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Funny enough, Pu-238 was on the market at one point (with plenty of restrictions). It was used to power pacemakers. It's still used for spacecraft.

I'm not sure how expensive it was in the '70s but it is very expensive now. American production is supposed to be scaling up, but only to about 1.5 kg a year.

But Pu-239 is presumably the stuff for this hobby project? The one-click price for that is hard to find, even if you bring your own take-out container.

Yes, I was looking for a point of comparison. Pu-239 is probably also quite expensive, as both isotopes are prepared by using a reactor to irradiate stuff. Only way I can see a "$2k" cost as relevant is if it's the cost to someone who's already acquired the nuclear material.

https://osrp.lanl.gov/pacemakers.shtml

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