U.S. Unable to Account for 36k Pounds of Its Own Weapons Grade Uranium and Plutonium
September 15th, 2011This is madness.
Via: Business Insider:
Under special nuclear cooperation agreements, the United States sent 38,580 pounds of enriched uranium and plutonium to more than two-dozen foreign agencies and is unable to account for 36,000 pounds of the material.
The Government Accountability Office report says these 27 cooperation agreements, set up to facilitate cross border research, have no accountability and the U.S. has no way to enforce control.
Because there is no reporting process in place, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been visiting nuclear storage sites overseas when permitted, but has not regularly visited countries with the greatest risk of proliferation.
Related: GAO Report
Research Credit: DR
At first glance I read it as 36 Kilograms. I was a little concerned.
36,000 lbs? Egads!
Did they let Arthur Andersen run the books on that one?
some pointed out that this could have all went to Isreal. Since they don’t officialy have nuclear weapon then those 36000 pounds are “unacounted for”.
Or it could really be that they have no idea where it is.. but since the story about the stolen nuke I am a bit afraid at who could have it.
Well, you have to consider, what would anyone do with just 18 tons of weapons grade nuclear materials. It’s not like they could build a bomb with it or anything…
Oh… shit…
The Trinity test was done with about 680 milligrams, which resulted in about a 15 kiloton explosion.
The “Little Boy” bomb contained 141.5 pounds of fissionable material.
The “Fat Man” bomb contained 13.6 pounds of fissionable mater.
In neither the Fat Man nor Little Boy explosions was all the fissionable material spent. That is, they were inefficient uses of the materials included. Unfortunately, through extensive testing by several countries in the following years, the methodology became better, to allow for more complete use of the materials.
The largest tested nukes were the “Tsar Bomba” (Russia) and “Operation Castle” with explosive yields of 50 kilotons and 48.8 kilotons respectively. I couldn’t find any information on the amount of fissionable material in these.
Based on a little back of the napkin math, the missing material would be enough to build dozens, if not hundreds of bombs at the larger scale, if whoever has it now has the testing results and construction notes for the more efficient bombs. We know nuclear secrets are well protected, yet have been stolen and traded for decades. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch of the imagination to believe that whoever the current “owners” of the missing materials may be, they would quite likely go out of their way to acquire the secrets to make weapons.
You can find sufficient information on the Internet (and even in published books for those who remember the pre-Internet days) on building a nuclear device. Building an inefficient one isn’t all that hard, and will have enough of a yield to … well … level Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s not like the new “owners” of that material can go do their own nuclear testing. Both the United States and the ex-Soviet Union, have extensive sensor systems to detect such testing, which is how North Korea was caught doing their own testing in 2009.
I hate posting Wikipedia links, but the included graphic on this link will give you a hint of how many nations of the world do have nuclear technology. And just because a nation says that they have dismantled their nuclear programs, it doesn’t mean that they’ve really destroyed all of their weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons
Pick a country on that map, and you have made a valid guess at where that material went. It doesn’t have to be a nation noted as having nuclear weapons capability. It’s advantageous for a country to *not* disclose that they have “the bomb”. and “the bomb” doesn’t have to be big. The deployment systems on others were huge, because they kinda didn’t want to irradiate the flight crews, or missile silo staff. For places that don’t care quite as much about their people, a nuclear device could be as small as the suitcase nukes that we kept hearing about post 9/11 (that never showed up). Store the completed device in a lead vault, and when you’re ready to deploy, it can be transported very easily. How many countries have aircraft that are capable of carrying several hundred pounds? That’s not even necessarily the military. A rogue nation with a less than caring leadership could simply have one packed up and put on a commercial flight. Sure, the crew won’t make it, but sometimes collateral damage is acceptable to some leaders. And hey, if you stick it on a commercial aircraft rather than a ICBM, they can always blame “the terrorists”.
I don’t say any of this as someone who’s tinfoil hat is screwed on too tight. It’s a practical assessment of what could be done. It’s the same games that the boys at the Pentagon play every day.
And I will say, I do not, nor will ever have the intention of getting involved with anything resembling this. I saw what happened to David Hahn, and I like my hair and skin where they are, in the current state that they’re in. Well, that and I still intend to live for quite a few more years, free and happy. 🙂