From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Mon May 12 2003 - 14:45:48 MDT
On Mon, 12 May 2003 11:53:48 -0700, Samantha <samantha@objectent.com>
wrote:
>> http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/hep-h/pdf/0305/0305062.pdf
>> Destruction of Nuclear Bombs Using Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Beam
>> Authors: Hirotaka Sugawara (Univ. of Hawaii), Hiroyuki Hagura
>> (KEK), Toshiya Sanami (KEK) Comments: 19 pages, 9 figures, LaTeX2e
>>
>> We discuss the possibility of utilizing the ultra-high energy
>> neutrino beam (about 1000 TeV) to detect and destroy the nuclear
>> bombs wherever they are and whoever possess them.
>
>
> Why would this proposal not screw up the other uses for fissionable
> nuclear material?
FWIW, the above URL did not work for me. But a search at the front door of
the site on Destruction AND Nuclear AND Neutrino AND Beam worked. Here's my
review of the proposal (but not the physics--I'm not qualified).
Notionally, you use the beam to create hadrons which either melt the bomb's
"pit", or ignite the surrounding explosives and produce a "fizzle", or both
(they guesstimate a monetary cost of 100 billion dollars for the beam
machine and a power expended of 50 gigawatts for many seconds per bomb).
Configurations that are not close to criticality would be unlikely to
experience either of those effects, as described. It does follow, however
that any fissionables, if struck for long enough by the beam, would be
"prematurely aged" and in that sense "screwed up"--a bit like leaving your
flashlight's spare alkaline batteries in a car whose interior gets hot
enough to render them useless through elevated self-discharge.
Their notion behind "detecting" rather than "destroying" is that a lower
energy beam could be used to create fission products which would be
detected remotely (from orbit? It's not specified).
It seems to me that one could use such a device to remotely disable a
nuclear reactor by forcing its core over unity and (at best) making it
"scram". Furthermore, the actual REM dose of a working device's beam would
be substantial if you got in its way.
So you could take out nuclear subs, maybe, though power or breeder reactors
would make easier (sitting) targets. You could conceivably also degrade a
standing inventory of yellowcake if you thought it was worth the effort
(investment), or even slow-bake a selected human population.
I swear I am not making this up: The writers promote a world government
*and* claim that this device would not be used as a weapon because it would
cost too much.
So the entire scenario would seem to be: some centralized authority has
control of the beam machine and its power supply, something like a GIS-
coded map of all the authorized concentrations of fissionables, the ability
and will to remotely probe elsewhere with the beam plus the ability to
decode resultant fission product signatures from any place on Earth, and
the ability and will to fry any unexepected concentrations--unless they
just feel like frying people. Oh, heck, we have the power budgeted already,
let's just scan the whole Earth once a year. Good training for the boys.
Gee, I want *that* job. </sarcasm>
MMB
-- I am not here to have an argument. I am here as part of a civilization. Sometimes I forget.
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