OK, i’m watching the two “nuclear 101” videos on youtube.
The second is https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MnW7DxsJth0

I’m also reading up on stuxnet https://www.langner.com/to-kill-a-centrifuge/
And have watched a video about plutonium. And about the nuclear reactor at MIT. And about the first british bomb.

It’s given me several possibilities to think about.

1) plutonium is extremely toxic, but some people have had plutonium enter their body and survive, in at least one case for at least 50 years after the accident. At least 4 of these are in the UPPU club, which stands for “you pee plutonium” because their urine contains detectable plutonium.

2) plutonium is exceptionally difficult to machine because it has very high hardness and low melting point. And in order to make a bomb it has to be machined.

3) it’s possible to watch the MIT nuclear reactor core live in active operation because 10 metres of water reduces the radiation above the reactor to a tenth of the background radiation in Boston. A smaller thickness of special concrete around the reactor does the same thing. A very much smaller thickness of lead glass allows operation of a hot box which reduces the radiation levels by a factor of (i think it was) 100,000. And small quantities of plutonium can be handled with just gloves.

4) when i think of decay of nuclear warheads, i think of tritium, because of its short half life. But plutonium warheads also degrade rapidly by helium building at grain boundaries leading to fairly rapid disintegration.

5) The hiroshima bomb was set off with 80% enriched uranium. But “weapons grade” uranium and plutonium is 90% or more – 93% or more in the USA. So the hiroshima bomb didn’t use weapons grade uranium.

6) Also weird, and so weird that i don’t believe it, is that the first british atomic bomb used only 38 g of plutonium. Compare that with the critical mass of plutonium (inside a neutron reflector) of 10 kg. What am i missing here?

7) Atomic bomb makers strongly dislike 240Pu because of its high spontaneous fission rate, and 238Pu because it’s physically hot. Both are present in spent nuclear fuel from power reactors. They like plutonium from dedicated weapons reactors that operate at high temperatures for very short periods of time.

8) The Pakistani AQ Kahn sold centrifuge enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Lybia. We know that Stuxnet targetted the Iran centrifuge. I can see no evidence to contradict the assertion that it may have also targetted North Korea and Lybia and possibly elsewhere.

9) Gaseous diffusion technology uses an enormous amount of electricity for enrichment. Something like 2% of the entire power usage of the USA at one time. Also, the power required to get 4% enrichment for commercial nuclear plants is about 60% of the power required for weapons grade uranium. I take that to mean that, before centifuge enrichment, commercial nuclear plants were actually using up more electricity than they were generating.

10) The number of individual units in a single uranium enrichment plant is of the order of 20,000, or more.

Re 6. Early nukes were inefficient and blew themselves apart, only a small amount of the material actually fissioned.

1 Do they have to pee into a special container that is delivered to a nuclear waste facility? No2s as well presumably. And sweat.

AwesomeO said:

1 Do they have to pee into a special container that is delivered to a nuclear waste facility? No2s as well presumably. And sweat.

Since you asked, I do happen to know the answer to that, it’s in the video. ;-)

> Do they have to pee into a special container that is delivered to a nuclear waste facility?
Yes.

They have to save and submit 50 gallons of pee at a time to have enough to detect the presence of plutonium. No #2.

11) An IAEA inspector deliberately permanently damaged “every centrifuge within reach” when visiting the Libyan enrichment facility. I had thought that keeping IAEA inspectors out was a sign of bad judgement. I was wrong about that, the inspector should have been not just sacked, but jailed for ten years. That’s millions of dollars more damage than from an act of arson.

12) Apparently there are two views on the difficulty of enriching uranium. One view is that it requires making and machining maraging steel, incredibly special bearings, and unholy machining accuracy. The other view is that a cheaper centrifuge will suffice.

13) Japan is allowed both enrichment and reprocessing facilities. Why both? That makes it really easy for Japan to make atomic bombs when they want to. Most countries are allowed neither.

Tritium nukes use a small amount of tritium I believe but the main core is either Pu or U the tritium increases yield – the bomb isn’t all tritium. Given the half life the device has a reduced operational life.

In My book you don’t allow any inspectors in – just like north Korea and Israel

The inspectors/ sanctions are the prelude to war

You don’t take one step back

Syria have up it’s chemical weapons then had it’s “revolution “ courtesy of the CIA

nuclear bombs are a waste of time and money

Just bribe the enemy government ministers and make them work for you, it’s more insidious than any bomb. You divide the population by every difference and they will tear themselves apart.