Pentagon: Inventory ordered of all U.S. nukes

[pirana 0]

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I am not a nuclear physicist but my understanding is that with the current enrichment level of HEU available, making a Little Boy sized boom is relatively easy without any super hi-tech wizardry, firing sets, design codes, etc.

Funny coincidence, neither am I.

But I believe it can be done in a medium sized suitcase, maybe even smaller. A single tube, traditional modern explosive at each end, fissable(?) material in the middle. Ignition at both ends, compress the nasty bits in the middle, and stand back.

Pretty sure that since the late 70's, that's all there is to it. Just a matter of getting hands on the enriched material. No wonder everyone gets so upset when a bit of it goes missing.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[GQ_jumper 4]

Ignition at both ends, compress the nasty bits in the middle, and stand back.

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If you're carrying it in a suitcase how do you stand back?? Maybe you can just hold it at arms length

I'm honestly not too worried about this stuff falling into the wrong hands, didn't you see that movie with Nicholas Cage, we'll know where it is before it is ever stolen.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Jasmin 0]

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I think you guys are being a little conservative with the numbers.

Remember.. in your time there are only about 5000 of the things. ACTIVE.. in MY USAF there were more than 10 times as many... you dont think all those parts REALLLY got destroyed do you.

I know they munched some of the rockets themselves... but all the other components I would bet..... are still out there if needed.

At one time the number was around the 20k mark, if you clicked on the Bulletin link I posted earlier, the number of active/deployed and inactive/responsive combined is roughly 10,000.

The much-argued RRW project (see the very amusing LANL blog for the extent of the debate) among others was supposed to be helping to cut the numbers roughly in half.

xj

"I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

[SpeedRacer 1]

I think the Pentagon left one in my basement. I'll make sure it isn't too near the furnace.

Speed Racer
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[pirana 0]

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I think the Pentagon left one in my basement. I'll make sure it isn't too near the furnace.

Keep away from flame.

Place on ground, light, and stand back.

Emits shower of sparks.

And maybe flaming balls.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[Amazon 7]

Actually the number was well over 70,000 at the height of the cold war in the 1970's.. and that was just the published numbers of the warheads/devices/gadjets.

All of that material is still out there... they may have been dismantled.. but the fissile material is going to last forever. Even with half lives of approx. 24,00 years to well over 80 million years for some of its isotopes... the TONS of it now on the planet( of which there was none before 1941) will always be here.

Even one ton of the stuff in 24000 years will only be down to half a ton.. and so on and so on. BUT even the smallest particle not even visible to the eye is toxic to life and will cause tumors in the human body.

There is more of it being produced in reactors all over the world as we speak as part of the process occurring inside those hundreds of reactors.

[Jasmin 0]

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the TONS of it now on the planet( of which there was none before 1941) will always be here.

Wrong.

Fission is a naturally occurring process a-la the Gabon natural reactor. Fissile and radioactive material predates mankind, so by quoting 1941 you're only off by a factor of (literally) a few billion years.

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BUT even the smallest particle not even visible to the eye is toxic to life and will cause tumors in the human body.

Wrong.

I do not suggest attempting to argue this with a medical physicist (and there's a few on here).

Its pretty rare for me to say this to anyone in these forums, but you are plain and simply wrong.



Edited to: correct spelling. (Forgive me, but I prefer the GB version of English!)

xj

"I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

[nerdgirl 0]

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Actually the number was well over 70,000 at the height of the cold war in the 1970's.. and that was just the published numbers of the warheads/devices/gadjets.

All of that material is still out there... they may have been dismantled.. but the fissile material is going to last forever.

Approximately 50% of the US civilian nuclear power is produced using down-blended HEU from dismantled nuclear weapons. Through the US “Megatons to Megawatts” program, Russia has also converted material from nuclear warheads (HEU from 13,000 warheads eliminated per the USEC) to fuel for civilian nuclear power generation.

Plutonium stocks can be converted into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. Last summer construction began a MOX fuel facility at the Savannah River Site. France, the UK, and Japan want MOX fuel from us. Russia has its own MOX program. The majority (none?) of the US’s 104 operating nuclear power plants do not use MOX. IIRC, neither of the two proposals submitted to the NRC last Sept for new nuclear power plants (in Texas) were MOX.

These are fabulously fascinating issues (im-ever-ho) at the intersection of science, security, energy politics, environmental politics, NIMBY, homeland security, international security, arms control ... and decreasing the 'shiny-metal-death' threat.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[kallend 1,683]

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the TONS of it now on the planet( of which there was none before 1941) will always be here.

Wrong.

Fission is a naturally occurring process a-la the Gabon natural reactor. Fissile and radioactive material predates mankind, so by quoting 1941 you're only off by a factor of (literally) a few billion years.

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BUT even the smallest particle not even visible to the eye is toxic to life and will cause tumors in the human body.

Wrong.

I do not suggest attempting to argue this with a medical physicist (and there's a few on here).

Its pretty rare for me to say this to anyone in these forums, but you are plain and simply wrong.



Edited to: correct spelling. (Forgive me, but I prefer the GB version of English!)

According to the US DoE, inhaling 1 microCi, or about 2.5 micrograms of reactor-grade plutonium is estimated to increase one's lifetime risk of developing cancer as a result of the exposure to 3%.

Approximately 0.008 microcuries absorbed in bone marrow is the maximum withstandable dose. Anything more is considered toxic.

Microgram quantities are NOT visible to the unaided eye.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Amazon 7]

Its an issue that is VERY personal to me. I have had several full body scans because of my proximity to Hanford during certain periods of time. I prefer that no other human beings are used as a lab test subject following callous exposures on an unsuspecting public.

Being a downwinder is not something I would recommend so pardon me if I can argue this with the medical profession that has done very little to mitigate the damage done to our world by the NON STABLE man made transuranic isotopes as opposed to the almost non existent naturally occuring isotopes. ( ie PU)

Face it.. this stuff is going to be around forever and that is what I said and will stand by. I am NOT against the use of nuclear power responsibly but there has not been a plant built yet that has used the level of security and level of construction safeguards that are truely neccessary to protect humanity. I think it can be done... but people have got to realize the true dangers of the material within our midst.

Personally I would make EVERYONE who will benefit from one of the things financially in its design... and building. and maintaining.. to live within 1 mile of the proposed plants in perpetuity. that means you... your children... and their childrenfor say 50 generations. That might make the people wishing to build one.. for the ages. If you have to live next to it in YOUR YARD.. perhaps you will make it safer for all the rest of us.

[Gawain 0]

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Personally I would make EVERYONE who will benefit from one of the things financially in its design... and building. and maintaining.. to live within 1 mile of the proposed plants in perpetuity. that means you... your children... and their childrenfor say 50 generations. That might make the people wishing to build one.. for the ages. If you have to live next to it in YOUR YARD.. perhaps you will make it safer for all the rest of us.

You say that as if the US nuclear energy program has killed people.

Honestly, when the storage tanks at Hanford were built, can you honestly say that they intentionally did not care in their construction which further allowed them to leak?

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[Amazon 7]

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You say that as if the US nuclear energy program has killed people.

Honestly, when the storage tanks at Hanford were built, can you honestly say that they intentionally did not care in their construction which further allowed them to leak?

There are thousands of americans who have died as a DIRECT result of radiation that was released between 1943 and the early 1990's....

Supporters of nuclear energy seem to forget about that......

Look at some of the numbers that were released at just Hanford

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002252208_hanford25m.html

The processing factories initially had no filters, so whatever went into the factory's exhaust system wound up in the air.

In spring 1945, I-131 levels near the stacks rose to 100 times the "permanently tolerable value," according to a DuPont record. By December of that year, I-131 was found on vegetation in Richland, Pasco and Kennewick as much as 32 times the safety level set soon after, in January 1946.

By 1951, an estimated 730,000 curies of I-131 had been released into the atmosphere. For comparison, the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear-power plant in the former Soviet Union released an estimated 50 million curies of I-131 over 10 days.

Hanford scientists worried that radioactive iodine from the factories could damage people's thyroids, which help regulate metabolism.

Hanford officials eventually dealt with the problem by installing filters and waiting longer to dissolve the uranium. The iodine, with a half life of eight days, became less of a problem as the uranium cooled.

The exception was the December 1949 experiment, known as the "Green Run." It was done in conjunction with the Air Force, for what appears to be a test of radiation-monitoring equipment.

After the test, radiation above the safety threshold established at the time was found in a region extending from The Dalles in Oregon to Spokane, and from Yakima to the Blue Mountains, according to a memo kept secret until 1986.

Other radiation problems continued to reach beyond Hanford's borders.

Particles and flakes of radioactive material continued to float periodically out of the factories to nearby towns. Columbia River water was used to cool the nuclear reactors, then flushed back into the river still bearing some radiation.

By 1971, when the last of those reactors closed, more than 100 million curies of radiation are thought to have flowed into the Columbia River. Elevated radiation showed up as far away as in oysters in the Pacific Ocean near the river's mouth.

[Jasmin 0]

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According to the US DoE, inhaling 1 microCi, or about 2.5 micrograms of reactor-grade plutonium is estimated to increase one's lifetime risk of developing cancer as a result of the exposure to 3%.

Approximately 0.008 microcuries absorbed in bone marrow is the maximum withstandable dose. Anything more is considered toxic.

Microgram quantities are NOT visible to the unaided eye.

I stand by my comments: there is a very big difference between can and will.

The statistics are for reactor-grade Pu, but most use U.
Then there's the variances added by method of exposure, ie inhalation vs ingestion vs epithelial exposure.
Add in dispersion.

But for semantics sake, even with the quoted inhalation statistics, its a can, not a will.

I'm not disputing that radiation can kill, but so can (and does!) 9V batteries, forks put in toasters and hook turns.

This is quickly and understandably becoming an emotive debate about reactors that I have a short fuse in responding to. So in the name of civility towards my fellow man/woman, that's it from me for this thread, flame away.

Edited to add:
ps What's with the Curies Kallend, I know Americans love old-style units and imperial, but the Si-officiated Becquerel is so much neater!

xj

"I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with the earth...but then I wouldn't recommend picking a fight with a car either, and that's having tried both."

[kallend 1,683]

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Edited to add:
ps What's with the Curies Kallend, I know Americans love old-style units and imperial, but the Si-officiated Becquerel is so much neater!

I am chairman of our university's Radiation Safety Committee. Our license specifies all quantities in Ci. Our orders are all in Ci. Our waste disposal is all measure in Ci. Any spills have to be reported in Ci. Is that OK with you?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.