From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Jun 08 2003 - 18:14:16 MDT
On Sun, 8 Jun 2003, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Low-enriched uranium is 1-3%. Enriched uranium for weapons could be as
> low as 30% or as high as 90% or more. Lower concentrations require more
> than just proportionally more mass.
Mike, I'm not sure I understand this. I do understand that with less
enriched uranium you may not be able to easily attain critical mass.
But for dirty bomb purposes critical mass (for a nuclear detonation)
is not essential. I believe there is a PBS NOVA special
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/dirtybomb/ -- see esp. the Program
Transcript) that goes into extensive detail about the problems that
would arise after contaminating a section of London with a dirty bomb.
Obviously the same would be true in U.S. cities.
> The process to enrich low to high is more strictly high tech than just
> enriching ore to low levels of enrichment, and more time consuming,
> since at each increase in enrichment, you have to process less at a
> time to reduce the radiation produced.
But isn't most of the enrichment done in automated facilities (e.g.
the centrifuges being installed in Iran or those that I believe are
in N. Korea, or the very old ones we still seem to have at Oak Ridge)?
If it is all automated facilities why does one care about the radiation
"density" (unless one is concerned about it "aging" the equipment faster
than would otherwise be the case)? Or is it necessary to reduce the
possibility of reaching "critical mass"?
Thanks,
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jun 08 2003 - 18:24:20 MDT