[HN Gopher] One does not simply destroy a nuclear weapon
___________________________________________________________________
One does not simply destroy a nuclear weapon
Author : loteck
Score : 85 points
Date : 2022-12-05 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (educatedguesswork.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (educatedguesswork.org)
| craig_s_bell wrote:
| Good piece. IMHO the introductory narrative might be slightly
| enhanced by briefly pointing out that synthesis of plutonium was
| not achieved until several years after Szilard's brainstorm.
| Something like, "Researchers predicted that Pu would offer such-
| and-so advantages; however, nobody had quite yet come up with the
| recipe."
|
| In other words: As described with the high-level bomb design,
| every material and component therein was concurrently being
| developed, improvised or straight-up invented to meet existing
| theory.
|
| Thank you for recommending Rhodes' books; they are excellent. I
| may be alone in this; however I wish he had split 'Dark Sun' into
| two distinct volumes: One about the development of thermonuclear
| technology; and another for all of the spy stuff.
| kennend3 wrote:
| I"'m really shocked it doesn't mention CANDU's plutonium
| destruction.
|
| https://publications.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp461-e.ht...
|
| "The Canadian CANDU reactors appear to be well suited to MOX
| fuel; they would not require physical modification and MOX fuel
| could be burned within existing operating and licensing
| envelopes. Furthermore, it is anticipated that existing safety
| standards governing the exposure of workers to radiation could be
| met or exceeded. The most significant change would be the
| implementation of enhanced security for the storage of new fuel
| prior to loading it in the reactors."
| HyperSane wrote:
| It is strange how much the unique capabilities of CANDU
| reactors are ignored. It can run on unenriched uranium.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| FWIW, any fast-neutron reactor can use MOX fuel, and extracts
| more energy from the fuel. However unlike CANDU they need
| fairly highly enriched fuels which is a proliferation
| concern.
| selectodude wrote:
| Heavy water is really, really expensive.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Do you have some numbers? Is it 100x the cost per litre,
| 1000x, 10000x ?
| 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
| According to Wikipedia, one liter goes for 2.23 USD [1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prices_of_chemical_el
| ements
| philipkglass wrote:
| That's for a liter of gaseous deuterium. According to the
| note in the last column, "Also sold by same supplier in
| the form of heavy water at price of 3940 USD per kg
| deuterium." Since a kilogram of heavy water is ~20%
| deuterium by mass, that means $788 per kilogram of heavy
| water. That would only come to $394 million for 500
| metric tons of heavy water, significantly lower than the
| $1.5 billion found by kennend3.
|
| The higher price kennend3 found could reflect the fact
| that Canada manufactured its own heavy water for building
| CANDU reactors in the 20th century whereas today there is
| more heavy water manufacturing capacity, including a
| large and relatively new plant in India:
| https://www.hwb.gov.in/heavy-water-plant-manuguru
| nimish wrote:
| If demand spikes then more efficient ways of harvesting
| heavy water will be invented. It's just not a big
| commodity.
| kennend3 wrote:
| This might make sense.
|
| I responded to this question as well and it seems the
| plant near me took $1.5 billion for the heavy water.
|
| After a bit of digging, it turns out it has approx. 500
| tons of Heavy water.
| 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
| Apparently one source (hidden behind a $3000 paywall)
| claims the market is only expected to grow.
| kennend3 wrote:
| This is from the CANDU plant near my house
|
| "Total capital costs including interest were $14.319
| billion CAD (about US$11.9 billion) with the heavy water
| accounting for $1.528 billion, or 11%, of this. "
|
| $1.5 billion (CAD) for heavy water seems like a LOT of
| money??
| [deleted]
| Finnucane wrote:
| Plutonium pits can be stored and reused, but not forever.
| Eventually enough decay products build up to make them
| unreliable. It's a big problem for long-term maintenance.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Relative to human timespans, the half life of plutonium is
| still pretty long. How long would it take to build up enough
| decay products to matter?
| chasd00 wrote:
| The easiest thing to do would probably be to deform the pit so it
| can't be used in a warhead without re-processing. Then store them
| in a box using the same policy/procedures as weapon storage. They
| don't take up a lot of space and it's not like they're being
| manufactured like crazy.
|
| Wikipedia says they're about 10cm in diameter which sounds about
| right, i thought they were around the size of a softball.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_(nuclear_weapon)#Pit_shari...
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| You wouldn't even have to do that. Command disablement systems
| (CDS) were purpose built for this.
| loteck wrote:
| The author of the post is replying to an NYT article [0]
| complaining that the US doesn't actually destroy nukes, but
| rather aims to recycle materials and so stores those materials in
| the meantime while awaiting need for those materials. This makes
| it seem like maybe the US is just being opportunisitic and not
| actually disarming.
|
| Exceprt from the blog:
|
| _Second, it 's extremely difficult to destroy plutonium
| effectively (some weapons are built out of highly enriched
| uranium and that can just be diluted in U-238 and used for
| reactors). Obviously, you can melt it down, but that just leaves
| you with a chunk of subcritical plutonium which someone can re-
| form into a new weapon. The plutonium is highly toxic, so you
| can't just grind it up and scatter it around without causing huge
| environmental impacts (watch Chernobyl if you want to get a sense
| of what I'm talking about here). You can't burn it because then
| you're going to have oxidized plutonium in the air, which you
| don't want people inhaling, and while you can of course use
| chemicals to dissolve it, vitrify it, etc. you're still left with
| an equivalent amount of plutonium, just bonded to some other
| stuff, and so it's just a matter of (potentially highly
| unpleasant) chemistry to get it back out again. In other words,
| it's precisely the properties of plutonium that make it
| attractive to build nuclear weapons out of that make it so hard
| to dispose of.
|
| It's also very difficult to store because while an individual
| weapon may not be a critical mass, if you have tens or hundreds
| of weapons you have to worry about them getting close enough to
| worry about accidentally assembling a critical mass just from
| proximity, which, would of course, be bad._
|
| [0] https://archive.ph/QCaov
| implements wrote:
| > It's also very difficult to store because while an individual
| weapon may not be a critical mass, if you have tens or hundreds
| of weapons you have to worry about them getting close enough to
| worry about accidentally assembling a critical mass just from
| proximity, which, would of course, be bad.
|
| Plutonium is an alpha emitter, and I believe the pits are
| plutonium alloyed with gallium and plated with gold to manage
| that and reduce chemical interactions with their immediate
| environment - there's no "critical mass" storage problem, I
| think.
|
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_(nuclear_weapon)#Material_..
| .]
| kennend3 wrote:
| > there's no "critical mass" storage problem,
|
| These accidental criticality accidents indicate otherwise:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident
|
| Accidentally going "critical" is a very real risk, especially
| with plutonium and it allotropes
| SlickNixon wrote:
| All of those examples involve reactors, single cores, or
| fluid containers.
| kennend3 wrote:
| yes.. it seems a few people misunderstood the statement
| as "plutonium cant go critical" vs the correct
| interpretation "storing pits close to one another".
| smaddox wrote:
| Plutonium is definitely able to go critical:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
|
| A plutonium sphere of roughly 10 kg is sufficient.
| SlickNixon wrote:
| I believe the original question was whether storage of
| multiple weapons in the same vicinity could result in
| accidental assembly of a critical mass, which appears to be
| something the author of the original blog came up with on
| their own.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| I think modern US designs are fusion boosted, making them
| immune to predetonation. Older experiments are
| increasingly dangerous, especially high-yield uranium
| guns.
| SlickNixon wrote:
| Fission, boosted, or fusion all start with a fission bomb
| with a possibility to fizzle.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Can an implosion bomb designed in the 100t yield range go
| ambient supercritical even in the presence of a neutron
| reflector?
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| A single bomb core is a sub-critical mass; needing either
| neutron reflectors or another source of neutrons to start
| a chain reaction.
|
| But if you pile a bunch of such cores up together like
| they were cannon balls, that inherent safety goes right
| out the window.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| In the context of this blog post, which explosive parts
| should we mothball and which ones are too dangerous to
| store intact, it's unwise to store pre-boosted plutonium
| cores at all.
|
| But, as a thought experiment, what is the difference
| between a pile of boosted-era plutonium cores; and a
| weird but moderated reactor? Specifically, does an
| arbitrarily-sized pile of weapons-grade plutonium marbles
| have the same inevitability of criticality you expect
| than if those are designed for use in boosted triggers?
| rjsw wrote:
| I thought there was a story of Richard Feynman going
| round Oak Ridge and realizing that they were getting
| close to a critical mass of stuff stored in adjacent
| rooms.
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| Pu-239 is an alpha emitter, but that's not the end of the
| story. All plutonium weapon cores are also neutron emitters
| because all weapons grade plutonium is impure and contains
| 2-7% Pu-240. Pu-240 is very prone to undergoing spontaneous
| fission which emits neutrons. So the presence of neutron
| radiation around a plutonium weapon core is unavoidable.
|
| Furthermore, when Pu-239 is struck by neutrons (from the
| Pu-240 contaminant, for instance), it has a chance of
| undergoing fission and that results in the release of more
| neutrons which can cause additional Pu-239 to undergo
| fission. This chain reaction is how Pu-239 bombs work. A
| _properly stored_ core will not sustain this chain reaction
| because the core is in a sub-critical configuration.
|
| So there is in fact a very serious critical mass concern with
| plutonium bomb cores.
| xxpor wrote:
| Now obviously this would cost a _shitload_ of cash, but could
| you dispose of it by building a reactor? Said reactor would
| consume it as the fuel, and so you 'd end up with fission
| products instead of plutonium. The costs, security, and the
| fact that reactors don't use up 100% of their fuel would of
| course be an issue...
| adql wrote:
| It's mostly political problem of "it's safer to store it in
| some bunker than to literally ship nuclear bomb material to
| power plants". At least according to wikipedia there are
| reactors in US that were built to also take MOX but it's just
| not done. And process of production/reprocessing also is
| harder.
|
| I'm sure it would be far cheaper to burn it than store
| otherwise.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >safer to store it in some bunker
|
| That doesn't even make sense. Nearly all the fuel reactors
| use is shipped in anyway, only 5% of the US fuel is from
| the US itself. How is holding tones of weapon making stuff
| in one convenient location safer than ultimately getting
| rid of it through burning it up?
| fluoridation wrote:
| The stuff that normally gets shipped is not as enriched
| as weapons-grade fuel. For security concerns, one would
| not want to ship highly enriched uranium, so repurposing
| would involve "diluting" it at the storage site prior to
| shipment.
| cogman10 wrote:
| To add to this, a nuclear bomb is nothing more than
| collecting enough weapons grade fuel into one location.
| Once you have a critical mass, kaboom!
|
| Nuclear reactor fuel, on the other hand, even if it is
| stolen can't do much more than get really hot. It's not
| possible (without a lot of expensive post processing) to
| turn regular reactor fuel into a bomb.
| kennend3 wrote:
| You did not read the article, or understand nuclear
| weapons at all, correct?
|
| "
|
| OK, so we just need to collect enough material and
| presto, we have a bomb. Unfortunately, it's not so
| simple:
|
| Getting enough of the right material is hard.
|
| As soon as you start to assemble the material into a
| critical mass, it starts reacting, and so if you do it
| wrong, the energy emission will cause it to explosively
| disassemble, which isn't fun if you're nearby, but
| produces a much smaller bang than you were looking for (a
| "fizzle").
|
| "
|
| A nuclear bomb is a massively complex adventure in timed
| explosions to get the "lens" to work. This is after you
| figure out what size/shape to make the "pit".
|
| Depending on the reactor design, regular reactor fuel
| often contains plutonium which is rather easy to separate
| because it is chemically different vs other elements in
| the used fuel waste. Again this is covered in the
| article.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > You did not read the article, or understand nuclear
| weapons at all, correct?
|
| The article backs up my assertions.
|
| The hard part of assembling a nuclear weapon is the
| materials, not the timing mechanism.
|
| > The pit presents two problems. First, even without the
| rest of the components, the plutonium pits can be reused
| to make new weapons, either with a similar geometry to
| the current weapon, or melted down and formed into the
| pit of a new weapon with a new geometry. We know from
| experience that once state-level actors get access to
| enough plutonium to build a bomb they generally succeed.
| Of course, non-state-level actors might have a much
| harder time building a bomb from raw plutonium.
|
| The thing that stops nations from getting nukes isn't the
| mechanical parts of the bomb but rather the actual raw
| fissile materials.
|
| Fuel for reactors does not contain enough fissile
| materials to present a problem which is why the security
| around it can be much more lax. On the other hand,
| shipping the pit for a nuclear bomb is inherently a lot
| more dangerous. Once you have the plutonium, making the
| bomb isn't an expensive prospect.
|
| The first nuclear bomb was a gun. We shot an enriched
| uranium bullet into an enriched uranium pit. The timing
| is only complicated if the intent is to drop the bomb or
| shoot it as a missile. Otherwise, a gun is pretty much
| all that's needed to have a suitcase nuke.
| Animats wrote:
| > Once you have the plutonium, making the bomb isn't an
| expensive prospect.
|
| Doing anything with plutonium is expensive. It has some
| strange physical properties, such as going through phase
| changes, expanding when heated and not shrinking when
| cooled. This makes machining difficult. Plus it's toxic
| and flammable, as well as being radioactive. The Pantex
| plant has struggled with this for decades. It may be
| machined in a liquid bath. Usually under remote control.
| Everything about making a plutonium bomb is hard.
|
| Metallic uranium is not difficult to machine. There's a
| tech note on how to do it from Union Carbide.[1] Even the
| radioactivity problem isn't too bad.
|
| > Otherwise, a gun is pretty much all that's needed to
| have a suitcase nuke.
|
| Truck bomb, yes. Suitcase bomb, no. The minimum size for
| a gun bomb is rather large.[2] Implosion bombs can be
| made smaller, but at a cost in complexity and
| reliability. The US nuclear establishment spent most of
| the 1950s on that problem.
|
| That's why non-state actors getting hold of weapons grade
| uranium is a big concern.
|
| [1] https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6580353
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy
| kennend3 wrote:
| The problem with "getting the materials" is a multi-part
| problem.
|
| First you need some sort of nuclear power plant because
| plutonium is not a naturally occurring element in any
| quantity.
|
| Once you have this and attempt to purchase uranium on the
| open market you can face being blacklisted. Do you know
| why this is the case? Because the jump from uranium to
| plutonium is actually easy.
|
| The second is you need to use a specific reactor design.
| Again referencing the article some designes can be
| targeted to produce plutionium. This is where the bulk of
| the US plutonium came from.
|
| But again, all reactors produce plutonium because even
| "enriched uranium" contains both U235 and U238.
|
| U235 splits and creates energy and free nutrons, U238
| captures nutrons and transmutes to plutonium.
|
| Reactors like what we have here (Canada) actually "burn"
| plutonium and are not really suitable but yet India got
| its plutonium this way
|
| "India's first nuclear explosion in 1974 used plutonium
| from a heavy water reactor that was a gift from the
| Canadian government."
|
| As an added "negative" our reactors also produce Tritium
| which Canada refuses to sell to anyone who intends to use
| it for weapons.
|
| > fuel for reactors does not contain enough fissile
| materials to present a problem which is why the security
| around it can be much more lax.
|
| This covers "reactor grade plutonium"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor-grade_plutonium
|
| I'm not sure security is "lax".. the nuclear power plant
| near me has armed guards 24x7 and "deadly force
| authorized" signs.
|
| It also provides citations of how this was actually used
| to build a 20KT proof of concept weapon.
|
| You are mixing Plutonium vs Uranium devices to suit your
| needs.
|
| Sometimes you reference "pits" which are plutonium
| devices, sometimes you reference "gun" which are
| antiquated uranium devices.
|
| I don't know if a "suitcase nuke" can use uranium given
| its "critical mass" is 107 LBS.
|
| On top of this you need a "gun" to launch the two
| together with sufficient speed.
|
| "Suitcase" nukes are almost guaranteed to be plutonium
| based because its critical mass is just 22 lbs and is far
| more destructive.
| [deleted]
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| MSR MSR MSR aka LFTR LFTR LFTR
|
| see my comment below.
|
| Hint: MSRs use 99-100% of fuel.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Given the difficulty and expense of building a reactor, I
| wonder if it would be cheaper to just start firing it into
| outer space. I'm guessing we could engineer a nigh
| indestructible container capable of surviving rocket
| malfunctions [without leaking]. How many Falcon 9 launches
| would it take...
| xxpor wrote:
| It's the same problem as doing nuclear power in space: if
| the rocket blows up during the launch, or even fails
| normally and just falls somewhere, it would be VERY VERY
| bad.
| ekr____ wrote:
| OP here. Yes, this seems to be the best available approach.
| You apparently can burn it in regular reactors if you mix it
| with uranium in what's called "mixed oxide fuel" (MOX).
| However, there are a bunch of logistical hiccups that make
| all of this a giant pain.
| Zancarius wrote:
| There's a small typo around 1/3rd of the way down: It reads
| "Alomogordo New Mexico." The city should be rendered
| "Alamogordo."
|
| It's also something of a persistent anachronism that lends
| itself to the historic population centers, I suspect. The
| actual test location was at Trinity Site, which is closer
| to present day Socorro and Carrizozo[1] than to Alamogordo
| and detonated on the north end of what was then called the
| "Alamogordo Bombing Range." This location is now a part of
| the broader White Sands Missile Range. It gives me some
| amusement as a local, because we occasionally hear the
| question "Oh, Alamogordo? That's where they tested the
| bomb, isn't it?!"
|
| I hate to disappoint their curiosity, of course, but
| according to present day geography, no; historically--
| _kind of_ --if you consider everything was then associated
| with Alamogordo, including the army air base! To us,
| Trinity Site is 80 miles to the north/northwest and on the
| other side of the Oscura Mountains (north of the San Andres
| Mountains)!
|
| [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6815401,-106.4737885,20
| 277m/...
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| The confusion probably arises from the fact that if you
| want to visit the Trinity Site, the caravan departs from
| the Alamogordo High School parking lot.
| philipkglass wrote:
| In 2007 the United States started building a MOX facility
| at Savannah River for turning the old weapons plutonium
| into power reactor fuel. Its cost and time to completion
| ballooned far beyond original estimates and it was
| ultimately canceled.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_River_Site#MOX_Fuel_
| F...
|
| "Cost estimate for MOX facility at Savannah River Site
| swells to $47.5 billion"
|
| https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/news/2015/04/22/cost
| -...
|
| "US MOX facility contract terminated"
|
| https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/US-MOX-facility-
| cont...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| The US was planning to burn nuclear weapons plutonium in
| the Palo Verde plant in Arizona which are a European design
| designed to use MOX fuel from the very beginning.
|
| The hang up is that they were unable to build a MOX
| fabrication facility in the US even with the help of the
| French, who have run a successful MOX plant.
|
| I haven't seen a detailed explanation of what exactly went
| wrong, but it seems challenging to build a MOX facility to
| operate under US worker safety regulation. The trouble is
| that quality MOX fuel is made with a high energy ball mill
| that alloys uranium and plutonium oxides by making
| plutonium particles that are potentially deadly if you
| inhale them.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Aren't you suggesting that the french have more lax
| worker protections than the US? I would be very skeptical
| of that claim. Now, maybe it was """hard""" (expensive)
| to properly protect your workers and so it didn't make
| business sense, and that for some reason is enough to
| kill most good things in the US
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Aren't you suggesting that the french have more lax
| worker protections than the US? I would be very skeptical
| of that claim. Now, maybe it was """hard""" (expensive)
| to properly protect your workers and so it didn't make
| business sense, and that for some reason is enough to
| kill most good things in the US
|
| This sounds like a stereotype. What an individual
| country's regulations and negotiated union agreements are
| are not on a linear scale with France better than the US.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| They have a different viewpoint.
|
| My understanding is that the factory where Karen Silkwood
| worked at
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimarron_Fuel_Fabrication_S
| ite
|
| was unable to eliminate plutonium particles completely
| from the work spaces so that workers had to wear
| breathing protection 100% of the time at work. It may be
| the French are OK with this but the US is not.
|
| Britain built a MOX facility that was unable to make
| quality fuel
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/minister-
| admi...
|
| The Russians were concerned enough about the primary
| route to MOX failing that they developed an alternate
| "vibropacking" route that they didn't need in the end.
| Russia is now recycling MOX in the BN-800 reactor.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| What's wrong with requiring workers to wear breathing
| protection 100% of the time?
|
| Isn't there hazard pay?
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Hazard pay is sort of passable for risks like falling off
| a telephone pole, where you pretty much fully prevent it
| if you're careful and know for sure whether it happened
| to you or not. It's not at all compelling (morally
| anyway) for a risk with much higher odds, where you won't
| know for twenty years whether it gave you cancer. That's
| just taking advantage of people's shortsightedness, and I
| don't think "but I paid them really well" is an excuse.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Well if the US government ran a LFTR / MSR they'd have both power
| for the facility and something to process a lot of the isotopes
| and a means for extraction.
|
| The core contention of the article is that plutonium disposal is
| an issue. Not in an MSR! (at least from my reading). I can see
| how solid fuel rods are precisely designed in old crappy fuel rod
| designs, since you need to design the rods to avoid them melting
| down.
|
| MSRs are meltdown proof, owing to the fluid nature of the fuel.
| If the fuel is overheating/overfissioning, then a "plug" that is
| artificially cooled will melt, and the fluid pours into a shallow
| pool. Since the shallow pool distributes the fissile material in
| a way that stops the chain reaction (since effectively a volume
| is reduced to a sheet, so all the neutrons in the vast majority
| of directions don't run into another fissionable/fissile nucleus,
| the reaction stops)
|
| Aside from the plutonium, IIRC molten salt reactors can "burn" a
| lot of "waste" isotopes since if it isn't fissile, let it hang
| around in the salt and a couple absorbed neutrons will make it
| something that can.
|
| The fission products are in a liquid, so the fluid can be
| chemically processed more easily to extract products. Yeah,
| there's a LOT of handwaving there, but fundamentally if you have
| a breeder reactor you can "process" waste into a usable form.
|
| The best thing about MSRs is that they scale to smaller sizes:
| the ORNL research reactor was closet-sized. A general MSR for
| fission product processing would have a lot more stuff for
| processing the salt for waste, yeah.
|
| As for replacement parts and the associated dangers for weapons
| construction, that's not really a nuclear issue once the nuclear
| material is separated.
|
| The inherent chemical toxicity of all this is a problem, but
| fundamentally what you are doing is containing the salts and
| processing them. Toxic stuff will eventually get transmuted to
| something else, so you just need to keep the core thorium ->
| uranium cycle going and "work on" all the rest of it to get it to
| a usable or more stable element.
|
| Yeah it's expensive, but TFA mentions billions for
| disposal/processing. Well, we could have had a usable MSR design
| and tons of knowhow to go with a good disposal method.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| I can't believe this doesn't mention Megatons to Megawatts!? [1]
|
| For 20 years between 1993 and 2013, fully 10% of all US
| electricity came directly from dismantled ex-soviet nuclear
| weapons. We bought downblended highly-enriched uranium from the
| warheads and put it in our peaceful nuclear reactors. The bombs
| that were once aimed at cities then powered them. This was a
| beautiful and true destruction of nuclear weapons.
|
| Same can be done with plutonium using MOX fuel (as briefly
| mentioned at the end of the post).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| slicktux wrote:
| Interesting piece of history! Thank you for sharing!
| godelski wrote:
| For added context, this program led to the destruction of
| (effectively) over 20k soviet warheads. It is BY FAR the most
| successful deproliferation program.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Thanks very much for posting this. I never knew about it, and
| always great to see a well-executed, purposeful government
| program that pretty much accomplished all of its goals.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > The fusion component also seems to involve some isotopes of
| hydrogen (tritium and deuterium), so it would be modestly helpful
| to have that but my understanding is that it's not that hard to
| get your hands on these isotopes.
|
| Tritium is the most expensive thing on the planet that any of us
| can buy, by weight. Only exotic matter (non-naturally occurring
| elements, anti-matter) is more expensive, and that you basically
| can't buy. Tritium is not easy to make or get. And it has a half-
| life of 12 years. Deuterium can't be used instead of tritium.
| chasil wrote:
| ...and you can buy a keychain with some of it.
|
| Don't break it. If you break it, don't breathe it.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2015/03/18/atomic_keyring_bright...
| 762236 wrote:
| That's wild that people would engineer something so dangerous
| if broken, particularly if the people using it are unaware
| that it contains tritium.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| It literally takes 2 minutes to look up Plutonium disposition in
| CANDU reactors.
|
| The US has done a lot of messed up things, but is not going to
| risk global escalation over silly paranoia.
|
| If clowns are going to create defamatory mythologies about
| people, than at least don't use easily disproved FUD.
| Havoc wrote:
| There is a pic somewhere showing south africa destroying theirs
| literally with angle grinders.
|
| Seems to have vanished from the internet though. Weird
| philipkglass wrote:
| South Africa's weapons were made with enriched uranium [1].
| Blending highly enriched uranium into power reactor fuel is
| relatively straightforward. The weapons discussed in this
| article are made with plutonium. There are a few facilities in
| the world for blending plutonium with uranium for power reactor
| fuel, but none that are designed to handle weapons grade
| plutonium. The US tried to build such a facility but it went
| badly over budget and over schedule and was cancelled:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33868375
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma...
| Victerius wrote:
| This raises a tricky question: Should the United States open or
| reopen a production line for nuclear weapons in order to avoid
| losing their manufacturing know-how, the way we do with M1A2
| Abrams tanks? The United States once produced thousands of tanks
| per year. Today, there is only one tank plant left open in the
| nation, the Lima Army Tank Plant. For years, US Army leaders have
| asked Congress to stop purchasing new tanks because they didn't
| need them, but Congress kept ordering the Department of Defense
| to buy tanks anyway. They did this for two reasons. First,
| because the tank plant is a source of jobs in Ohio. Second,
| because tanks, especially modern, 21st century tanks, are
| specialized tools, and we wouldn't want to forget how to build
| them. An argument is made than it is cheaper to keep producing
| tanks that are not needed than it would be to restart a tank
| production line if one didn't exist. The argument is sensible and
| most likely true. After the US Air Force ordered an early end to
| the production of the F-22 Raptor in the early 2010s, the
| production line was dismantled. A report in the last few years
| estimated the cost to restart the production line in the
| billions, if not the low tens of billions.
|
| So, back to nuclear weapons. The United States manufactured tens
| of thousands of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Most of
| these weapons have been decommissioned and the production lines
| have been shut down. The United States no longer manufactures
| nuclear weapons. Now, the incoming Ground Based Strategic
| Deterrent will be built by Northrop Grumman in the next few years
| to start replacing the aging Minuteman III ICBMs, but the
| warheads and the nuclear cores will be recycled from existing
| ICBMs.
|
| Which raises a question: How would the United States replenish
| its nuclear weapons if the need arose? For example, after a
| nuclear war, where the US lost or expended 80% of its arsenal?
| The question of what to do after a nuclear war may sound absurd
| to some, but it's a worthwhile and interesting one. More on
| point, what if the nuclear cores degrade to a point where they
| may no longer work? This is essentially what the Department of
| Energy's Nuclear Stewardship Program is for. It's a program that
| costs billions of dollars a year and uses supercomputers to model
| the slow degradation of the nuclear cores in the stockpile.
|
| But here's where it gets trickier. The New START treaty will
| expire in 2026. If it is not extended or replaced by a new
| treaty, there will be nothing stopping Russia from expanding its
| nuclear arsenal. China is also expanding its nuclear arsenal as
| we speak. Last week's report by the Department of Defense claims
| that China will have 1,500 nuclear weapons within a decade or so.
| China is building new nuclear weapons. The United States is not.
| And China is not bound by any arms control treaty.
|
| Now, the US also happens to have about 1,400-1,500 nuclear
| weapons deployed, plus a few thousand more in storage,
| disassembled.
|
| But what if China decides at some point to push past 1,500? To
| 2,000? 5,000?
|
| A country with 5,000 nuclear weapons could conduct a first strike
| against a country with 1,500 nuclear weapons, on a 2:1 ratio, and
| still have 2,000 nukes in reserve for further strikes. This is
| why the nuclear arms race happened between the US and the Soviet
| Union in the first place. Any disparity in the deployed arsenals
| gives the side with more the advantage. So if China ever decides
| to expand beyond 1,500, the strategically sound move for the US
| would be to start building more, to match the Chinese production.
| It would be tragic, but it's not impossible.
|
| But the US no longer manufactures nukes, so the old production
| lines would need to be reopened.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| There was a substance called FOGBANK. This is an aerogel used
| in thermonuclear bombs. It used acetonitrile in its
| construction. When absorbed into the body, acetonitrile
| metabolizes into hydrogen cyanide.
|
| All of the records for making FOGBANK were destroyed. Too many
| workers were being poisoned by the stuff, so rather than pay
| out worker's comp and wrongful death lawsuits, the records were
| eliminated. As an aerogel, the stuff is brittle, crumbles and
| fractures. When the warheads needed to be reconditioned, it
| turned out that the limiting factor was the lack of FOGBANK. It
| turned out that some mysterious contaminant was needed to give
| it the exact properties necessary. So it had to be re-invented.
|
| To address your other points, China's nuclear position has
| never been Mutually Assured Destruction - they've only wanted
| enough warheads to deter the opponent. In the past, this has
| meant about 200 warheads. Since the US has been developing
| anti-ballistic missile technology, that means China needs more
| warheads and more missiles to guarantee a sufficient deterrent.
| Only the US & USSR built so many nukes that the START treaties
| were even necessary.
|
| > _But the US no longer manufactures nukes_
|
| Yes we do.
|
| Final assembly (and disassembly) is at Pantex in Amarillo, TX.
| Parts are made elsewhere, some in Kansas City, some at Lawrence
| Livermore, some at Y2. There have never been "production
| lines". All of them were built as individual projects. All of
| them authorized and approved by Congressional oversight.
|
| > _But what if?_
|
| But what if I get a pony?
|
| How many countries has China invaded? How many have the US
| invaded? How many has Russia invaded? China may be run by
| buttheads, but I don't see them attacking others. Not like We
| The People have attacked and invaded.
|
| Links:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetonitrile
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I mean, China basically said it would go to war to conquer
| Taiwan. China just fired missiles over Taiwan and into
| Japanese territory a few months ago. Seems like they're
| advertising a willingness to attack; why don't you believe
| them?
| themaninthedark wrote:
| They are quite willing to attack others.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Peo.
| ..
|
| Just looking at the number of wars that the PRC has been
| involved in:
|
| 1950 : Invades and Annexes Tibet
|
| 1950 - 1953 : Assists North Korea and invades South Korea
|
| 1954 : Attempted to invade Taiwan
|
| 1958 : Attempted to invade Taiwan
|
| 1962 : Sino-Indian War
|
| 1967 : Nathu La and Cho La clashes
|
| 1979 : Sino-Vietnam War
|
| 2017 : China-India border standoff
|
| 2020-2021: China-India clashes
|
| You also claim that FOGBANK records were destroyed to cover
| up for lawsuits, Wikipedia does not have anything relating to
| that. >Manufacture involves the moderately toxic, highly
| volatile solvent acetonitrile, which presents a hazard for
| workers (causing three evacuations in March 2006 alone).
|
| Acetonitrile may be poison but has been used in public
| product very recently: >It has been used in formulations for
| nail polish remover, despite its toxicity. At least two cases
| have been reported of accidental poisoning of young children
| by acetonitrile-based nail polish remover, one of which was
| fatal.[23] Acetone and ethyl acetate are often preferred as
| safer for domestic use, and acetonitrile has been banned in
| cosmetic products in the European Economic Area since March
| 2000.[24]
| mikeyouse wrote:
| There is no world in which the US "lost or expended 80% of its
| arsenal" that it would matter at all whether we could produce
| more. I can't even think of a good analogy. "Should I store a
| box of extra smoke detectors in my attic in case I have a house
| fire and my current ones are destroyed?"
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I think the more realistic need to produce new nuclear
| weapons is that for some reason parts availability for the
| existing ones becomes a maintenance problem. If Warhead A
| requires Part B which must be produced via an industrial
| process that was last widely used in the '70s, you no longer
| have a credible warhead.
|
| It may not even be possible to spin that process back up even
| on a bespoke basis because it may depend on yet further now-
| outdated processes. Even if that's not the case, executing to
| a high enough degree of precision for the application may
| depend on a lot of now-lost trade knowledge.
|
| But yeah, apart from the sustainment problem, there's
| definitely no way that replacing 80% of the US nuclear
| arsenal matters if the warheads were expended in anger or
| destroyed on the ground by nuclear weapons.
| [deleted]
| mikeyouse wrote:
| The sustainment problem is solved as well - there was the
| infamous example of the "fogbank" aerogel that we lost
| capacity to build. It turns out it's easy enough (with an
| unlimited pile of money) to reverse engineer any component
| we might need and rebuild capacity. Nuclear weapons aren't
| "complicated" once you've figured out the science, they're
| just expensive to engineer.
|
| Since we have maybe 10x more warheads that we need, we can
| easily salvage any components from decommissioned ones
| which is actually what's leading to the plutonium storage
| problems from the article.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank
| Victerius wrote:
| I respectfully disagree. In the 12 months following a nuclear
| war, Americans would still need to file their taxes before
| the April 15 deadline, the federal and state governments
| would still have to pass annual budgets, software vendors
| like Microsoft and Apple would still need to push updates to
| their products, homeowners would still need to pay their
| annual property tax bill, people would still need to refill
| their drug prescriptions.... life could recover and go on.
| I'm not convinced that a nuclear war would be so destructive
| that civilization wouldn't survive. Most nuclear attacks
| would probably target missile silos in rural North Dakota and
| airbases anyway, not cities.
|
| But, as I outlined in my comment, there are situations other
| than nuclear war where the US might want to restart nuke
| production.
| danenania wrote:
| That's a rather... optimistic view of what total war
| between nuclear powers would entail. The goal would not be
| only to destroy missile silos, but industrial capacity, the
| electric grid, military and political leadership at all
| levels, and the population's will to fight. All major
| cities and all forms of civilian infrastructure would
| likely be targets.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Infrastructure is a huge problem if you live in a dense
| population center, but a manageable one if you don't live
| in a big city.
|
| Electricity isn't a requirement for survival; we lived
| without it only a century ago. My folks in New England
| can pretty much live indefinitely with a wood stove, a
| groundwater well, and local agriculture. It might be a
| rough time figuring out how to feed everyone. It would
| certainly be a brutal existence, and a lot of people
| wouldn't make it, but the world would go on.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| the groundwater well is full of radiation and the plants
| all died from radiation and lack of sunlight...
| danenania wrote:
| Right, you would have some survivors, but people would
| not be concerned with paying taxes or anything related to
| tech/the internet.
|
| Even rural areas would be _very_ rough. Supply lines for
| gasoline would probably be disrupted so unless you can
| grow enough food for subsistence on your own land, local
| agriculture wouldn 't help you much. We'd have to go back
| to horses and carriages, but with the exception of Amish
| areas, I doubt there are enough horses and related
| equipment around to make it work. And then there's
| security, which is probably the biggest issue. Even if
| you can sustain yourself, you'll need a way to deal with
| packs of hungry, desperate people going around with guns.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > I'm not convinced that a nuclear war would be so
| destructive that civilization wouldn't survive.
|
| Civilization would survive, somewhere far from NA, Europe,
| Asia (ie in South Africa).
|
| There is only two scenarios for a global nuclear war:
|
| a) first, pre-emptive strike - then you need to take out
| not only nuclear arsenal of the enemy, but it's C2 and
| weapons production capabilities, including any
| administrative centers, eg Moscow or Washington
|
| b) retaliatory, responding strike - then you need to make
| sure nobody from the enemy attacked you could ever wage war
| against you, so not only you destroy enemy nuclear
| capabilities (silos? why though? they are already used and
| empty) but any C2, weapons production capabilities,
| including any administrative centers, eg Moscow or
| Washington
|
| In both scenarios there is no way you will see an IRS agent
| on the porch of your bunker in less than 10 years from the
| war.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| You're talking about a full scale nuclear exchange --
| that's so far beyond North Dakota silos I don't know what
| to tell you. As one obvious example since you brought up
| Microsoft -- our Pacific Fleet Trident nuclear subs are
| based within 20 miles of Microsoft's campus -- they and
| many of our SLBM and warheads are stationed there. Nobody
| is going to be shipping software following a nuclear attack
| in Puget Sound.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| This reminds me of a recent NYT op-ed where the premise was "a
| little nuclear war is okay." The reality is that any amount of
| nuclear war is the end of humanity, there is no post-nuclear
| war civilization, at least not for very long.
| simonh wrote:
| >The reality is that any amount of nuclear war is the end of
| humanity...
|
| Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean, but on the face of
| it that's absurd. If N Korea nuked S Korea and the US nuked
| them back, or if Pakistan and India decided to toast a few of
| each others cities, the impact on the rest of the world would
| be mostly economic.
| philipkglass wrote:
| _A country with 5,000 nuclear weapons could conduct a first
| strike against a country with 1,500 nuclear weapons, on a 2:1
| ratio, and still have 2,000 nukes in reserve for further
| strikes. This is why the nuclear arms race happened between the
| US and the Soviet Union in the first place. Any disparity in
| the deployed arsenals gives the side with more the advantage.
| So if China ever decides to expand beyond 1,500, the
| strategically sound move for the US would be to start building
| more, to match the Chinese production. It would be tragic, but
| it 's not impossible._
|
| Submarine launched ballistic missiles and mobile missiles on
| land (train or truck based) break this race. If you don't know
| where all the enemy launchers are, having enough weapons to hit
| them all in a first strike doesn't matter much. That's why the
| US has a strong deterrent even though Russia has more warheads
| than it does [1]. The mobile weapons can't be guaranteed
| destroyed and a retaliatory strike from them will still be
| devastating. The US's mobile deterrent is based on submarine
| launched ballistic missiles but it has designed mobile land
| based weapons in the past, and other countries (e.g. Russia)
| still have mobile land based weapons.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_des...
| PointyFluff wrote:
| H8crilA wrote:
| I think your concern is valid, but the answer would be
| something like "we can reopen production lines when someone
| else ramps up their production first". In other words - do not
| escalate, but respond to foreign escalation. This is a much
| better approach, notice that if you escalate first you leave
| everyone worse off, including yourself. Perhaps others are
| worse off than you, but you are still worse off than you were
| before.
|
| If you're wondering how would you know that someone is ramping
| up production (can be underground, etc.) the answer is
| detecting underground testing via seismographs.
|
| About the tanks, it is indeed a problem. Just look at Germany,
| their military industrial complex used to be one of the best in
| the world (I'm talking post WW2, for example Leopard tanks) but
| they effectively killed it. Luckily there's always another
| modernization behind the corner, so as long as you don't reduce
| the vehicle count there's enough production. Which is what
| Germans (and not only them) did.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| > the FAS report I linked above is from 1993 and states that
| "There is almost 1000 MT of reactor Pu (R-Pu) in existence now,
| with the amount growing by about 100 MT per year."
|
| Why couldn't we find a few kg for NASA missions? IIRC for Juno
| mission the DoE said "plutonium is out of stock for now, come
| later", so they had to use these oversized solar panels.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Those deep space missions use plutonium 238 to power
| radioisotope thermoelectric generators:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238#Use_in_radioisot...
|
| Surplus weapons plutonium is plutonium 239:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239
|
| Since plutonium 239 decays 275 times slower than plutonium 238,
| it also generates 275 times less decay heat and is therefore
| not useful in RTGs.
| avar wrote:
| > Why couldn't we find a few kg for NASA missions?
|
| It's not a technical problem, but a bureaucratic dispute. NASA
| has been getting the Pu essentially for free, but the DoD/AEC
| made it as a byproduct.
|
| Now they don't anymore, and would like NASA's budget to pay for
| its manufacturing.
|
| NASA has decided it's not worth the money, and as a result is
| only using Pu power for missions that really need it, such as
| the large Mars rovers.
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