Re: Can hydrogen deliver?
From: Tim O'Flaherty (pinwheels_Fudge__at_gwi.net)
Date: 10/23/04
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Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:33:28 -0400
"Richard Bell" <rlbell@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
news:cl0vq9$8gd$1@rumours.uwaterloo.ca...
> In article <a8qdnfajlP2pl-7cRVn-1w@gwi.net>,
> Tim O'Flaherty <pinwheels_Fudge_@gwi.net> wrote:
<snip>
> >
> >So are you saying it is impossible to make weapons from civilian nuke
waste?
> >How about from Pu reprocessed from civilian nuke waste? "You can't get
> >there from here" However if you first go there......
>
> We are not saying that it is impossible. Merely that it is a stupid way
> to do it.
Well, Ignoring whether making nuke weapons is stupid or not overall, if you
are determined and this is the only means at your disposal it wouldn't be
stupid. What we are talking about is using Pu already separated by
reprocessing. There is plenty of it already and we can expect more with
more reprocessing.
> The plutonium in civil nuke waste is mixed with highly radioactive
> fission products and the isotopic ratio of Pu240 to Pu239 means that the
> plutonium recovered from civil nuke waste is not weapons grade.
Less reliable but still possible to create a weapon with relatively little
resources once you get your hands on the separated Pu as pointed out in the
article I posted above.
> When you
> use a neutron flux to turn U238 to Pu239, there are few fissions happening
in
> your uranium slug, so it is less radioactive and much easier to handle.
Irrelevant, we are discussing the use of materials stolen/misdirected from
commercial reprocessing into the hands of terrorists.
<snip>
> Compared to the irradiating of non-fuel uranium slugs, extracting Pu from
> spent fuel is a waste of resources.
A terrorist group wouldn't have to do any of this, just steal some small bit
from the growing tonnage of already separated Pu from commercial fuel
reprocessing. More reprocessing means more opportunities.
>
> Plutonium from spent fuel, Pu240 contamination and all, can be made into
> a weapon of sufficiently tweaked design, but the only way that you can be
> certain that it will detonate with a bang, not a whimper, is to actually
> embark on a test program.
You only need to be certain if it is to be used as a detererent as between
two opposing states like the US and Russia or India and Pakistan. A
terrorist group will use NY, CLE or LA as a testing ground.
>
> So if North Korea has built weapons from material scavenged from spent
fuel,
> but not tested any of them (Have I missed the news that North Korea has
> conducted a series of bomb tests?), there are serious questions that they
> are more than paper tigers (albeit, highly radioactive ones).
>
North Korea is dangerous not just for what they may lob on to Seoul or Tokyo
but because of what they may sell on the black market.
Regards,
Tim O
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