7 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Put 3.5 lbs of uranium into a regular bomb as a "shrapnel" and generate shitload of hysterical news reports about "The atomic bomb". Standard media approach...

Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 7:29 AM

Anonymous said...

> The minimum uranium for a bomb is much less than 100 lbs.



Technically correct; reality impaired. Fox News has trained you well.



Whether the number is 100lbs (accepted number for the simplest practical bomb, the sort of thing achievable by people who'd bet their program on stealing fissionable out of a basement in Rochester, NY) or 33lbs (accepted number for medium tech device utilizing heavy neutron reflection) or 20lbs (accepted number for sophisticated (implosion) device), the bottom line is that instead of Kodak having 3.5% of the material needed for a bomb, they have 10-20% or less of what is needed.



So...no bomb. Not even close. Which was the whole point. Can't argue the point, quibble over the details, and pretend they're what matters.

Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 1:38 PM

Paul said...

and even with the purest HEU, 3.5 lbs is not enough to run a nuclear reactor.



Much less uranium is needed for a chain reaction involving thermal neutrons than is needed for a bomb, since the fission cross section of 235U is much higher at thermal energies. This fact of physics is one reason why the Japanese had a criticality accident some years ago at a uranium processing plant. The accident involved enriched uranium compounds dissolved in water.



The minimum critical mass for 100% enriched uranium in a water moderated/reflected system is less than 1 kilogram.

Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 10:36 AM

Hyperspace said...

Anonymous/Eric Cartman: You are both correct that this was not a true nuclear reactor, and it certainly was not like the reactors found at nuclear power plants. I've added a correction to the blog post and updated the language.



However, experts do agree that about 100 pounds of HEU is needed to develop "gun-type" nuclear weapons. Other devices can be made with less HEU, but they are much more technically difficult to make.

Source: http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_security/nuclear_terrorism/technical_issues/fissile-materials-basics.html

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 4:15 PM

Anonymous said...

Quote: "With 3.5 pounds of uranium on-site, the reactor had far less than the roughly 100 pounds needed to develop a weapon."

That is just nonsense. The minimum uranium for a bomb is much less than 100 lbs., and even with the purest HEU, 3.5 lbs is not enough to run a nuclear reactor. Even Wikipedia has much better information.

Call the IAEA inspectors! It's very suspicious^^

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 3:38 PM

Mr Bilderberg said...

So Californium-252 is a neutron source and Uranium-235 is a neutron amplifier? Not really a true reactor then.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 3:32 PM

Anonymous said...

At the time the reactor was build Eastman Kodak was pretty busy building KH-9 Hexagon spy sats for the CIA.



So I wouldn't be surprised if the reactor was originally build to harden their films against space radiation.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 6:44 AM