> Photos of the arrests show a policeman in a ski mask holding a Kalashnikov while Chetrus knelt on a sidewalk in front of the bank. He would eventually be sentenced to five years in prison. This guy is involved in the sale of enriched uranium and he gets FIVE YEARS?!
Ten kilos of HEU may or may not be a concern, it's hard to say and I don't see the actual enrichment in the article. "Highly enriched" means any enrichment above 20% enrichment but below "weapons grade" (85%). It usually means something close to 20%... 10 kg of 20% enriched is scary but is a small fraction of what you need to make a bomb, so while it's scary it isn't necessarily that some terrorist group almost bough…
I'm interested in how technically difficult building an actual nuclear weapon would be if you got your hands on one of these samples. The idea that crazy islamic extremists could one day get their hands on this uranium and cause significant, extended damage is truly terrifying.
A dirty bomb would be trivial to create, but an actual nuclear device would require some serious expertise and hardware to create
This is true for a modern bomb but not so much for something simple. Hell, you can take two subcritical masses and slam them together with your bare hands to start a chain reaction.
I'm interested in how technically difficult building an actual nuclear weapon would be if you got your hands on one of these samples. The idea that crazy islamic extremists could one day get their hands on this uranium and cause significant, extended damage is truly terrifying.
In the 60's the government enlisted two fresh physics PHDs to see if they could design a plausible bomb, as a stand in a random country. In they end they succeeded in creating a detailed plan, and it didn't even take them that long.
There's much more public info out there now, and machining has improved significantly in the past 50 years, so the main barrier to building a crude bomb is material rather than the expertise or machining.
I'm interested in how technically difficult building an actual nuclear weapon would be if you got your hands on one of these samples. The idea that crazy islamic extremists could one day get their hands on this uranium and cause significant, extended damage is truly terrifying.
In the 60's the government enlisted two fresh physics PHDs to see if they could design a plausible bomb, as a stand in a random country. In they end they succeeded in creating a detailed plan, and it didn't even take them that long. There's much more public info out there now, and machining has improved significantly in the past 50 years, so the main barrier to building a crude bomb is material rather than the expert…
And they designed the, much more complex, implosion style weapon rather than a simple gun based design.
> Photos of the arrests show a policeman in a ski mask holding a Kalashnikov while Chetrus knelt on a sidewalk in front of the bank. He would eventually be sentenced to five years in prison. This guy is involved in the sale of enriched uranium and he gets FIVE YEARS?!
Ten kilos of HEU may or may not be a concern, it's hard to say and I don't see the actual enrichment in the article. "Highly enriched" means any enrichment above 20% enrichment but below "weapons grade" (85%). It usually means something close to 20%... 10 kg of 20% enriched is scary but is a small fraction of what you need to make a bomb, so while it's scary it isn't necessarily that some terrorist group almost bough…
From the article:
*>> Rockefeller asked then-CIA Director Porter Goss whether enough had vanished from Russia’s stockpile to build a nuclear weapon. “There is sufficient material unaccounted for so that it would be possible for those with know-how to construct a nuclear weapon,” Goss responded.
Previously in the article they mentioned that this 10kg of Uranium believed to be for sale on the black market is a fifth of what you would need for a Hiroshima-type weapon but it's just about enough for a well designed implosion nuke. It's not clear whether these statements are connected or if the journalist is making a mistake but Douglas Birch, the coauthor reporting from Russia & Maldova, has been reporting on nuclear issues for the Center of Public Integrity for a few years now.
A dirty bomb would be trivial to create, but an actual nuclear device would require some serious expertise and hardware to create
This is true for a modern bomb but not so much for something simple. Hell, you can take two subcritical masses and slam them together with your bare hands to start a chain reaction.
Holy shit. Where is all of this being sourced? Is this all "fall of the Soviet Union" stuff where someone wandered into a silo and took apart a bomb?
It is curious -- it's not like enriching Uranium is easy. It's a very expensive process with incredibly low yields if I understand it correctly.
The USSR and the US have enriched probably a million tons of it by now, the EU has enrichment capacity of about 20,000 tSWU which they used to enrich Uranium to about 4% (some to higher levels for research/breeders/medical plants). They are the 2nd largest producer of low and high level of enriched Uranium in the world, and also due to various security blunders also helped to proliferate nuclear technology.
It's expensive but it is still done at very high scales, heck feeding a 1000MW fast nuclear reactor today require much more enrichment than running a weapons program.
That fact was actually was one of the main "fear factors" in the Iranian deal, they have a huge enrichment operation however oddly enough it would not be sufficient to drive a power program.
The part of the nuclear deal with Iran was actually a bit ironic because cutting down on their centrifuge numbers means that they could not actually sustain a "civilian" nuclear program as they will not manage to enrich enough fuel to keep any commercial energy producing reactors running.
So while they will be able to enrich uranium capping their centrifuges (at what 5000?) actually means that outside of research the only other use would be to make a bomb.
And this is simply because bombs don't care about time lines, if you are running nuclear energy you need to be able to continuously feed it with fuel fast burning light and heavy reactors consume fuel at a very high rate so if you can't have an enrichment process which can keep up with your reactors the whole program is pointless.
The nuclear deal with Iran pretty much means that they'll need to enrich Uranium for 2-5 years then run their reactor for 6 months till it burns out and repeat which is obviously nonsensical.
A dirty bomb would be trivial to create, but an actual nuclear device would require some serious expertise and hardware to create
This is true for a modern bomb but not so much for something simple. Hell, you can take two subcritical masses and slam them together with your bare hands to start a chain reaction.
The two masses will blow themselves apart before much energy is released. You'll kill yourself but not do much damage. That's why gun-type bombs use explosives to drive the two pieces together.
Ten kilos of HEU may or may not be a concern, it's hard to say and I don't see the actual enrichment in the article. "Highly enriched" means any enrichment above 20% enrichment but below "weapons grade" (85%). It usually means something close to 20%... 10 kg of 20% enriched is scary but is a small fraction of what you need to make a bomb, so while it's scary it isn't necessarily that some terrorist group almost bough…
What about using this stuff for a dirty bomb?
HEU isn't that dirty - nothing like as nasty as something as Cobalt 60 which is fairly widely used as a radiation source.
I'm interested in how technically difficult building an actual nuclear weapon would be if you got your hands on one of these samples. The idea that crazy islamic extremists could one day get their hands on this uranium and cause significant, extended damage is truly terrifying.
It's terrifying that anyone has their hands on this material.