Timeline for Everything has a tiny nuclear reactor in it. How much of a concern are illegal nuclear bombs?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 6 at 15:05 | comment | added | Jon Custer | One can calculate that probability, and it is not unavoidable, just high enough to not be reasonable as a military weapon. B Cameron Reed has a number of nice papers on the Manhattan Project, including one calculating the probability. Faster assembly times than those considered in WW2 (limits of naval propellant at the times) would help as well. | |
| Jul 6 at 5:05 | comment | added | jwenting | @JonCuster wrong, premature criticality is unavoidable, leading to the weapon inevitable becoming a fizzle. That's why the Manhattan project abandoned the idea. If it had been possible they would have built it, in fact they went so far as to build several bomb casings for it and some other components before the math showed it would never work. | |
| Jul 5 at 9:05 | comment | added | Aetol | @vsz enriched uranium isn't that much more radioactive. Spent fuel, however, is highly radioactive, even when using natural uranium, so that's going to be a concern regardless. | |
| Jul 5 at 8:41 | comment | added | MSalters | This answer fails one one key problem: small nuclear reactors, like those in a nuclear submarine absolutely rely on enriched uranium. All the U-238 in un-enriched Uranium increases the volume and lowers the power production. The assumed reactors are even smaller than those in submarines. | |
| Jul 5 at 4:09 | comment | added | vsz | +1, this is the only realistic solution. The nuclear reactors in this setting must use fuel which is safe to handle. Otherwise, despite it being nigh impossible for anything other than big state actors to build nuclear bombs, anyone would be able to build dirty bombs by having conventional bombs scatter the unsafe nuclear fuel. | |
| Jul 4 at 21:33 | comment | added | Jon Custer | @ChristopherKing - a gun-type device can be made from Pu. For military use it was not deemed practical because of the higher possibility of premature criticality from the higher spontaneous neutron probability. As a terrorist device that may not matter much. | |
| Jul 4 at 18:57 | comment | added | Christopher King | @JonCuster it is much harder to make an atomic bomb from plutonium. | |
| Jul 4 at 17:41 | comment | added | Jon Custer | So one uses the piles to produce plutonium, just like the Manhattan Project did. No enriched uranium needed. | |
| Jul 4 at 15:56 | history | edited | Christopher King | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 3 characters in body
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| Jul 4 at 15:05 | comment | added | Christopher King | Hmm, so do you think the society should make enriched uranium completely illegal? Or perhaps only allow partially enriched uranium, or allow it but only for certain applications? | |
| Jul 4 at 14:34 | history | answered | David R | CC BY-SA 4.0 |