«

On 14/05/2012 05:00, Dudley Hanks wrote:
> Perhaps, this has been posted before. If it has, I missed it...
>
> http://news.betanoodle.com/2012/05/1...ecret-weapons/
>
> Kind of scary when you think about it ...

It is not entirely unsurprising. All the major film makers have used
state of the art and bleeding edge ultra-trace analytical techniques to
measure the purity of the raw materials they are using. Infinitessimal
amounts of the wrong impurity seriously compromise performance. AFAIK
the relevant impurities are considered trade secrets by all of them.

There are similar academic research reactors in some universities eg.

http://www.ill.eu/

The Japanese maker Fuji was using ICP-MS in the 1990's for the same sort
of ultra-trace chemical analysis of their refined silver purity.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

"Dudley Hanks" <> writes:

> "Mxsmanic" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Dudley Hanks writes:
>>
>>> I wonder how many of these micro-nuke facilities exist...
>>> and what kind of regulation / scrutiny is in place to protect the
>>> public...
>>
>> What does the public need to be protected from?
>>
>> In 1919, 21 people were killed by a flood of molasses in Boston. What kind
>> of
>> regulation / scrutiny of molasses was in place to protect the public?
>
> That's cute ... I wonder if it's true ...

Well, I wasn't there myself (in 1919), but it's widely attested to
online.

> Even if it is, I can't imagine a scenario where, in an instant, molasses
> would wipe out an entire city, killing hundreds of thousands, maybe even
> millions, of unsuspecting people ...
> and contaminating 10 times more with who knows what sorts of God-awful
> injuries ...

Hey, we didn't manage that level of damage when deliberately bombing
Hiroshima.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

On 14/05/2012 17:03, Dudley Hanks wrote:
> "Martin Brown"<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:be2sr.9071$...
>> On 14/05/2012 05:00, Dudley Hanks wrote:
>>> Perhaps, this has been posted before. If it has, I missed it...
>>>
>>> http://news.betanoodle.com/2012/05/1...ecret-weapons/
>>>
>>> Kind of scary when you think about it ...
>>
>> It is not entirely unsurprising. All the major film makers have used state
>> of the art and bleeding edge ultra-trace analytical techniques to measure
>> the purity of the raw materials they are using. Infinitessimal amounts of
>> the wrong impurity seriously compromise performance. AFAIK the relevant
>> impurities are considered trade secrets by all of them.
>>
>> There are similar academic research reactors in some universities eg.
>>
>> http://www.ill.eu/
>>
>> The Japanese maker Fuji was using ICP-MS in the 1990's for the same sort
>> of ultra-trace chemical analysis of their refined silver purity.
>
> One could assume that similar care / meticulous research is inherent in
> producing ink for printer cartridges.

I was told some of the ink chemistry involved reactive intermediates
that are somewhat exotic but they don't have to hit anything like the
extreme purity levels that top quality silver halide films need.

> I wonder how many of these micro-nuke facilities exist...
> and what kind of regulation / scrutiny is in place to protect the public...

I suspect such a reactor comes with its own set of nuclear technicians
to tend to its every need. The company gets to use the neutron beam and
pays a service charge to ORNL or whoever. That was pretty much how Crays
were operated outside the USA back in the days of the Cold War.

Given that it does contain moderately enriched uranium I would expect
there to be some safeguards beyond it just being too hot to handle.
There has been a recent Greenpeace protest about moving highly enriched
fuel from the US to the Grenoble research reactor.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

"Dudley Hanks" <> writes:

> "Mxsmanic" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Dudley Hanks writes:
>>
>>> But bombs are capable of how much more punch?
>>
>> Modern nuclear bombs have lower yields than their predecessors, because
>> there
>> isn't much practical use for extremely high
>
> A couple of things:
>
> First, it is my understanding that thermo nuclear devices can be designed to
> deliver just about any arbitrary amount of blast power. So, to say that
> modern "warheads" are of lower power than their predecessors is irrelevant.
> The amount of the blast is determined more by the amount of explosive
> material than by the way it is delivered.

No. Nuclear and thermonuclear devices are NOT just specially good
explosives, loaded in suitable quantities into a casing with a fuse.
The concept of "explosive material" is invalid when discussing them.
You can't just add more "explosive material" to get more results. The
whole design of the weapon is based around the intended explosive
power.

Also, a "thermo nuclear device" is one that involves fusion as well as
fission. Nobody much currently thinks terrorists have any hope of
building one of those.

(There are military weapons with adjustable yield; the B61 Mod-10 could
be set for .3, 5, 10, and 80 kilotons of TNT equivalent power for
example.)
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

On 15/05/2012 23:42, Dudley Hanks wrote:
> "David Dyer-Bennet"<dd-> wrote in message
> news:...
>> "Dudley Hanks"<> writes:
>>
>>> "Mxsmanic"<> wrote in message
>>> news:...
>>>> Dudley Hanks writes:
>>>>
>>>>> But bombs are capable of how much more punch?
>>>>
>>>> Modern nuclear bombs have lower yields than their predecessors, because
>>>> there
>>>> isn't much practical use for extremely high
>>>
>>> A couple of things:
>>>
>>> First, it is my understanding that thermo nuclear devices can be designed
>>> to
>>> deliver just about any arbitrary amount of blast power. So, to say that
>>> modern "warheads" are of lower power than their predecessors is
>>> irrelevant.
>>> The amount of the blast is determined more by the amount of explosive
>>> material than by the way it is delivered.
>>
>> No. Nuclear and thermonuclear devices are NOT just specially good
>> explosives, loaded in suitable quantities into a casing with a fuse.
>> The concept of "explosive material" is invalid when discussing them.
>> You can't just add more "explosive material" to get more results. The
>> whole design of the weapon is based around the intended explosive
>> power.

To within limits you can tune the yield depending on how the implosion
is done. But I think the fundamental point that Dudley is missing is
that although research reactor fuel is moderately enriched it is still
not bomb grade and to make a nuclear bomb detonate requires a lot more
than just putting enough bomb grade uranium in the same place. The
latter just turns the air blue with ionisation and makes a bit of a
mess. Amazingly the Manhattan project avoided ever having an unexpected
criticality incident because Feynman was so obsessive about making sure
the mass in any one place was carefully controlled.

Tokai mura was not so lucky working with research reactor fuel.

>> Also, a "thermo nuclear device" is one that involves fusion as well as
>> fission. Nobody much currently thinks terrorists have any hope of
>> building one of those.
>>
>> (There are military weapons with adjustable yield; the B61 Mod-10 could
>> be set for .3, 5, 10, and 80 kilotons of TNT equivalent power for
>> example.)
>
> On an academic level, I can appreciate the difficulties in building such a
> device, but to say that nobody thinks the bad guys can do it doesn't hold a
> lot of water when those same guys said, yeah, go ahead, build that reactor
> over that fault Japan's sitting on top of. What are the odds anything'll
> happen?

They are two separate things. Bomb grade uranium or better plutonium has
to be the right isotopic purity and to make it detonate you have to do a
carefully controlled implosion (plutonium is easier if you can get it).
This is not likely to be got right first time. There is a global nuclear
test monitoring network so any test would be noticed.

By comparison making the nerve agent sarin is essentially trivial and
even then Aum Shinroku were not able to weaponise it to any significant
extent. Their attack on the Tokyo subway was scary and killed some
people, but nowhere near the numbers that they had hoped for.

The Japanese reactors were hardened against earthquakes and the turbine
halls shut down OK. What took Fukushima down was a tsunami way bigger
than the planners had allowed for and a daft design without proper water
tight bulkheads on the crucial electrical plant in the basement.
Certainly bad design but I would blame penny pinching beancounters for
that rather than engineers.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On May 15, 10:40*pm, "Dudley Hanks" <dha...@blind-apertures.ca> wrote:
> "Mxsmanic" <mxsma...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:...
>
> > Dudley Hanks writes:
>
> >> But bombs are capable of how much more punch?
>
> > Modern nuclear bombs have lower yields than their predecessors, because
> > there
> > isn't much practical use for extremely high
>
> A couple of things:
>
> First, it is my understanding that thermo nuclear devices can be designedto
> deliver just about any arbitrary amount of blast power. *So, to say that
> modern "warheads" are of lower power than their predecessors is irrelevant.
> The amount of the blast is determined more by the amount of explosive
> material than by the way it is delivered.
>
> Second, if you take a look at the chart on this site:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
>
> you'll noticed that even small amounts of explosive material can deliver
> more than enough punch to take out a fairly large city, especially when
> multiple devices are used.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> The problem you keep skirting around isn't that a reactor was in a
> >> basement,
> >> it was that a "HIDDEN" reactor was in a basement, and that the company
> >> had
> >> been vague about its location, and that only a handful of people knew
> >> what
> >> was going on...
>
> > It wasn't hidden, it simply wasn't advertised. Lots of other things exist
> > in
> > the average corporation that are not advertised, either, but that doesn't
> > make
> > them "hidden." Few people knew about it because few people worked with it.
> > And
> > the government knew all about it, and licensed it. All the paperwork was
> > in
> > order.
>
> Then, why the scandal?
>
>
>
> >> In addition, the company was having financial difficulties, setting upa
> >> framework in which not only public safety was at risk, but national
> >> security
> >> as well...
>
> > How was public safety or national security at risk?
>
> Company needs money. *Company sells valuable material on black market to
> make up short fall. *Bingo, public at risk...
>
>
>
> >> Well, to me, erring on the side of caution won't hurt anybody ...
>
> > You cannot err on the side of caution unless you know which side that is.
>
> I think that's what was said at a few hearings in Japan, before the license
> was granted to put that reactor on that active fault line. *I'd say that
> erring on the side of caution would have been to choose a different site....
>
>
>
> >> ... but being too cavalier about dangerous goods is bound to bite some
> >> one,
> >> sooner or later.
>
> > In what way was Kodak cavalier?
>
> If you can't see it, I can't show it to you ...
>
> >> It seems to me that if you ask your average citizen from Japan, they
> >> might
> >> caution against playing too fast and loose with nukes for profit ...
>
> > The average citizen of Japan knows absolutely nothing about nuclear
> > physics,
> > and so his opinion is worthless.
>
> I think that's the stupidist thing I've ever heard you say ...
>
> Take Care,
> Dudley.

You could be right there, although he has said a lot of stupid things
in the past,
I haven't been a memeber of this group long enough to judge such
things.

On May 16, 2:28*am, Mxsmanic <mxsma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dudley Hanks writes:
> > On an academic level, I can appreciate the difficulties in building such a
> > device, but to say that nobody thinks the bad guys can do it doesn't hold a
> > lot of water ...
>
> If the bad guys could do it, they would have already done it. They have enough
> trouble designing reliable conventional explosives.

The bad guys of the past were very good at designing conventional
explosives.
The USA and UK took those 'bad' people and we ended up with the space
race, I doubt the USA or UK could have 'won;'
without German rocket expertise of the time.
I doubt Hitler had much grasp of rockects or desiging them but it
didn;t stop people building them.


> > ... when those same guys said, yeah, go ahead, build that reactor
> > over that fault Japan's sitting on top of. *What are the odds anything'll
> > happen?
>
> So nothing has happened?

On 14/05/2012 17:03, Dudley Hanks wrote:

(...)
> I wonder how many of these micro-nuke facilities exist...
> and what kind of regulation / scrutiny is in place to protect the public...

Non-destructive testing with gamma rays seems common practice. Weld
testing for example. Which isotopes are used I do not know, but
presumably something a lot more radioactive than U-235. I'm guessing
caesium-137, iridium-192 and cobalt-60.

What I find weird is that everybody calls this thing a "reactor" when it
really wasn't, no _reaction_ was taking place. Apparently they used it
as an neutron beam source.

Here's more:

<http://boingboing.net/2012/05/16/more-detail-on-what-kodak-was.html>

--
Illegitimi non carborundum

On 16/05/2012 02:31, Mxsmanic wrote:
> Dudley Hanks writes:
>
>> That's what the people of Japan were told before the tidal wave ...
>
> The tsunami killed 20,000 people. The nuclear plant didn't kill anyone.
> Wouldn't it make more sense to worry about the things that do kill people,
> rather than the things that don't?

Tell that to all the workers that battled to keep the plant from going
into full blown meltdown and got a lethal dose of radiation in the
process. They may not be dead yet, but...

--
Illegitimi non carborundum

On 18/05/2012 02:01, Mxsmanic wrote:
> Dudley Hanks writes:
>
>> While this slant leaves a lot less sinister impression, I think a lot of
>> people will still have a bit of apprehension, due not to the fact that Kodak
>> was using weapons-grade nuclear fuel to power their "device," but more
>> specifically that they had access to weapons-grade nuclear fuel while
>> experiencing financial difficulty.
>
> Only if they are stupid. People tend to be scared of everything when they are
> stupid.
>
> It's not clear what you mean by "weapons-grade." You can make a weapon out of
> just about anything.

What is meant by "weapons-grade" is this:

"According to a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Kodak's
uranium was highly enriched -- to a level approaching 93.4%. That is the
type of weapons-grade material that U.S. government agencies are trying
to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on…"

from <http://boingboing.net/2012/05/16/kodak-had-weapons-grade-uraniu.html>

The question remains: how did Kodak get the stuff.

Or to provide another quote:

"“It’s such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have
this material,” Miles Pomper, of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies
in Washington, D.C."

from
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/05/17/corporations-of-mass-destruction-eastman-kodak-operated-a-nuclear-reactor-with-weapons-grade-uranium-for-30-years/>


--
Illegitimi non carborundum