That only matters if actual destruction from the bomb is the goal. To create a panic you don’t need a bomb that’s effective in that manner.
No, the original notion of a “dirty” bomb came up during WWII. The Germans were working on the A9 and an Amerika Bomber to deliver dirty bombs to the continental USA. The U-235 they attempted to ship to Japan on their u-boat U-234 was intended to be used by the Japanese for dirty bombs to be delivered to the continental USA also.
According to the docu-drama Day One about the Manhattan Project, Enrico Fermi had the idea to use a Strontium-90 dirty bomb to drop on Germany and poison their food supplies…
No. This is not correct. It a rather persistent mistaken factoid, though.
It must be pointed out that Japan completely lacked the capacity of refining uranium, so even if they had been shipped some of the uranium oxide, they could not have made a bomb, dirty or not.
The never had the ability to bomb the continental US, and by April, 1945 that was even less of a option.
Civilian nuclear power plants generally use low-enriched uranium which cannot easily be used to make a fission weapon. However all U.S. and U.K. nuclear naval vessels use weapons-grade uranium, about 97% pure. This constitutes 72 submarines for the US, 12 for the UK and at least 10 nuclear-powered US aircraft carriers. Note this includes some which are not operational but still have fueled reactors and have not been decommissioned.
Constructing a “gun type” fission weapon from highly enriched uranium is relatively straightforward. Therefore maintaining physical security of these nuclear naval vessels – whether underway, docked for supply and personnel replenishment, or in dry dock undergoing long-term maintenance – is paramount. Also maintaining security of the weapons-grade uranium which is trucked across the country as these vessels are initially constructed and later refueled is equally important.
Joema.
That is true as far as it goes.
However. Getting enriched uranium out of a nuclear powered wessel would probably be an ungodly PITA. When it comes to the subs, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had to take the sub half apart to get stuff out of the core. The aircraft carriers probably are not much better.
IF the ONLY thin you were worried about was some bad guys stealing your enriched uranium from your sub or aircraft carrier, my WAG is about all the security you would probably need would be a mall cop that would report back when he saw an army of people working on site for a couple of weeks.
Then we have the fact these reactors have been running awhile. There is some serious radiation in there. See my previous post about fuel rods.
There are many, many nuclear naval vessels powered by weapons-grade uranium. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, it was a miracle that none fell into unfriendly hands. Then there would be all the time in the world to carefully remove the U-235. This could easily happen again. Several nuclear submarines have sunk and are still on the ocean floor.
You wouldn’t even need a nuclear naval vessel. In his book “The Nuclear Express”, former Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office Thomas C Reed explained how during the Soviet collapse, weapons-grade materials were found in old barns protected by a rusty padlock and no guard.
http://amzn.com/076033904X
As I mentioned, It is not just the reactors. Fresh weapons-grade U-235 is regularly trucked across the US in semis. There is no submarine to disassemble there.
Fresh weapons-grade U-235 or Pu-239 is not dangerously radioactive. You can safely hold it in your hand. In fact the early fission bombs had removable cores which were inserted by hand after the bomber took off.
You’re going to like reading about Project SAPPHIRE.
The submarine cores question is an interesting one, and I was thinking that billfish left off all of the ones sitting near the shore in wrecks near Polyarny.
Got cut off there. The cores in question are in old Soviet nuclear submarines that were junked after the fall of the Soviet Union. Many of them are still sitting there at a variety of old Soviet, now Russian naval installations. Either rusting at anchor, or their sterns cut away and in cantonments along the shore. It was a pressing radiological concern with the Norwegian oil guys I was chatting with, mainly for what the radionuclides might do to the surrounding marine life in the Barents.
I imagine bad guys “could” harvest U-235 from those cores, but good luck doing it without killing themselves or attracting attention.
I wonder if the U.S. and Russia managed to recover all of the U-235 naval fuel in question in Sapphire?
I’ve got some experience with this and I’m going with NO. Do you have a cite?
Do you know any of the security measures taken with nuclear material shipments? I do. I’m going with NO again about easy access.
Do you know who is creating, when it’s being created, why it’s being created and where this “fresh weapons-grade U-235” is appearing? I’m going with NO again.
And if any of the above actions were being taken, it’s highly classified way above your pay grade.
[QUOTE=joema]
Fresh weapons-grade U-235 is regularly trucked across the US in semis.
[/QUOTE]
And by “fresh” I mean in the primary definition of the word: “having its original qualities unimpaired; not decayed; not altered by processing”. It does not mean freshly manufactured. Obviously spent reactor fuel is highly radioactive. However fresh U-235 or Pu-239 is not and can be safely handled.
The highly enriched fission core of U-235 or Pu-239 weapons is metal which must be machined to a precise shape. While in later years this often used glove boxes and hooded milling machines for extra safety, this was not always so.
Note the below photo of Rocky Flats facility from www.lm.doe.gov. The caption reads: “Workers in machine shop form enriched uranium components into their final shapes”.
Yawn! Your cite makes it look like transport is happening all the time. Our nuclear subs and carriers don’t fuel up every trip/rest stop.
“In the United States Navy, Refueling and Overhaul (ROH) refers to a lengthy process or procedure performed on nuclear-powered Naval ships, which involves replacement of expended nuclear fuel with new fuel and a general maintenance fix-up, renovation, and often modernization of the entire ship. In theory, such a process could simply involve only refueling or only an overhaul, but nuclear refueling is usually combined with an overhaul. An ROH usually takes one to two years for submarines and up to almost three years for an aircraft carrier, to perform at a Naval shipyard. Time periods between ROHs on a ship have varied historically from about 5–20 years (for submarines) to up to 25 years (for Nimitz-class aircraft carriers). For modern submarines and aircraft carriers, ROHs are typically carried out about midway through their operating lifespan. There are also shorter maintenance fix-ups called availabilities for ships periodically at shipyards. A particularly lengthy refueling, maintenance, and modernization process for a nuclear aircraft carrier can last up to almost three years and be referred to as a Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH).”
We’ve got ten carriers and approximately 77 subs (some are in reserve). So maybe 4/5 subs a year and a carrier every other year. Not a whole bunch of shipments.
I have no quibble with publicintegrity.org. They don’t appear to be dominated by any ideology bias. They do have to raise money. Writing dull articles won’t stir up the base. So they punched up words; imply these are rolling down the road all the time.
Again, you or they have no idea of the security measures regarding transport of the materials other than generalities.
Working with U-235 and plutonium being safe and relatively non-hazardous? Ludicrous. You throw in a picture of operations at Rocky Flats. Please read the wiki article about the facility. Read the health studies. Heck, research heavy metal poisoning in general.
I never claimed there is a “whole bunch”, only that weapons-grade uranium shipments by semi trucks across public highways to naval vessels happen regularly, likely several times per year. I’m not arguing for or against that or making any policy statement whatsoever, simply answering the OP question about what type of materials are available and their characteristics.
I never claimed working with U-235 or Pu-239 was totally safe. The OP question was about a terrorist getting access to these materials and what the feasibility was for handling them. The answer is it varies widely based on the type, whether uranium, plutonium, low-enriched, highly enriched, fresh, spent, etc.
In general highly enriched uranium can be safely hand held, in fact that was the common practice to arm early nuclear weapons. It can be handled and machined using straightforward methods. See the paper “Machining of Uranium and Uranium Alloys” (Morris, 1981): Machining of uranium and uranium alloys|INIS
You can see WWII-era film of uranium being machined here:
If you want to learn more about how weapons-grade materials were handled (inc’l Rocky Flats and other facilities), read the book Atomic Accidents by James Mahaffey. It is balanced, entertaining, educational account: http://amzn.com/B00HVPI1IA
As already mentioned, the book “The Nuclear Express” is probably best most detailed, informed historical account of nuclear proliferation events. It was written by the former Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office:
http://amzn.com/076033904X
The Curve of Binding Energy was another groundbreaking book which reviewed the work of nuclear weapons designer Ted Taylor. Taylor said in this book it was possible to build a functioning fission weapon (not a dirty bomb) using low-enriched reactor materials, although it would be difficult due to the design and high radiation levels: http://amzn.com/B005E8AH10
It is obvious several actors are not pursuing that or even a Pu-239 implosion weapon because they are using centrifuges. Those are only used to make highly enriched U-235, which is mechanically straightforward to fashion into a weapon.
In this lecture, Berkeley physicist Richard A. Muller discusses feasibility and effectiveness of dirty bombs used by terrorists. In general he doesn’t think they would be that effective, and essentially says a terrorist could find much better uses for his time.
Starting at 58:25 into this lecture, he discusses this: