WashPost infographic on recent thefts of nuclear materials

[kristopher]

Last edited Fri Dec 13, 2013, 06:00 PM - Edit history (2)

A look at recent nuclear-material incidents
Nuclear material was stolen from a truck in Mexico this week before being recovered two days later. Such incidents are alarmingly frequent. More than 20 cases of theft or loss of nuclear material take place every year, according to the IAEA. Many are never publicly reported. These are selected cases from the past 10 years, based on reports tracked by the Nuclear Threat Initiative




http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-look-at-recent-nuclear-material-incidents/2013/12/05/c6f3edb6-5e17-11e3-be07-006c776266ed_graphic.html


From Harvard's Belfer Center

What nuclear weapons could terrorists use?
They could buy, steal, or construct a nuclear weapon.

What is the hardest part of making a nuclear bomb?
Acquiring fissile material

What fissile material is needed to make a nuclear bomb?
HEU or Pu

How difficult would it be for terrorists to get fissile materials?
Not hard enough
There are hundreds of locations holding nuclear weapons or weapons-usable material and no binding global standards for how well these weapons and materials should be secured. There are more than 130 research reactors with HEU, some of which are in developing and transitional countries.

Once nuclear material is acquired, could terrorists make a nuclear weapon?
Yes
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment (1977): "A small group of people, none of whom have ever had access to the classified literature, could design and build a crude nuclear explosive device... [O]nly modest machine-shop facilities that could be contracted for without arousing suspicion would be required."

Amount of HEU required to make a crude nuclear bomb: 25 kg

Global stockpile of HEU: 1,600,000 kg

Amount of Pu required to make a crude nuclear bomb: 8 kg

Global stockpile of separated Pu: 500,000 kg

Number of bombs that can be built with global stocks of fissile material:
More than 200,000

Bombs' worth of fissile material that has been stolen or lost:
More than 1
One hundred percent of "known" stolen or lost fissile material has been recovered. However, as the IAEA reported in 2009, "There are indications that the seized material was only a sample of larger quantities available for illegal purchase or at risk of theft."

Have terrorists acquired fissile material?
No known cases

Could terrorists steal or buy HEU or Pu?
Yes
In 1993, 20 bombs' worth of HEU was discovered in a poorly secured building in Kazakhstan. In 2006, Russian citizen Oleg Khinsagov was arrested in Georgia for carrying 100 grams of HEU and attempting to find a buyer for what he claimed were many additional kilograms. In 2007, two armed teams broke into South Africa's Pelindaba nuclear facility, a site where an estimated 30 weapons' worth of HEU is stored. They overcame a 10,000-volt security fence, entered without setting off an alarm, broke into the emergency control center, shot a worker, and escaped.

Number of incidents from 1993-2008 of theft or loss of nuclear or other radioactive materials reported to the IAEA by member states:
421

Number of confirmed incidents from 1993-2008 involving unauthorized possession of HEU or Pu:
18

Have terrorists ever stolen or built a nuclear weapon?
No known cases
However, they are trying to do so. In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a statement, "The Nuclear Bomb of Islam," declaring that "It is the duty of Muslims to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God."

Estimated number of nuclear weapons sites in the world:
111

Number of countries in which these nuclear weapons are stored:
14

Could terrorists steal or buy a nuclear weapon?
Yes
The potential for a sale exists. Kim Jong-il sold something thousands of times larger than a bomb: a Yongbyon-style reactor capable of producing Pu from which Syria could have made nuclear weapons. There are 150-240 U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. A 2008 internal U.S. Air Force investigation determined that "most" of the sites that store them do not meet U.S. security standards. In 2010, six anti-nuclear activists broke into a Belgian military base that stores 10-20 U.S. nuclear weapons and walked around for up to an hour.

Has a country ever lost a nuclear weapon?
Yes
At least 11 U.S. weapons have been lost. Russia denies that any of its nuclear weapons have gone missing, but at least four nuclear submarines with nuclear warheads sank and were never recovered.

How much did the smallest nuclear bomb ever produced weigh?
23 kg

Minimum weight of a nuclear backpack weapon like Russia's RA-155:
30 kg trong>

Number of minutes that it would take to detonate this bomb:
10
Yield of this bomb: 0.5 to 2 kilotons

Could terrorists target a nuclear reactor to cause a nuclear explosion?
No
There is no possibility of a nuclear explosion at a civilian reactor. However, a successful terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant could release a massive dose of radiation.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/20057/nuclear_terrorism_fact_sheet.html

[PamW]

1. The vast majority of MEDICAL sources

Although the intent was to disparage nuclear power; an examination of the list shows that the majority of the missing sources are NOT used in the nuclear power industry.

The sources are from the MEDICAL community.

If you want to give up the vast benefits of the medical uses of radiation; just because you don't like nuclear power or nuclear weapons; then you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

PamW

[kristopher]

2. Even if what you say were true (and given your track record that's a Grand Canyon sized if)

...the logic you are using is cracked.

The number of thefts with the existing amount of opportunity shows that any dramatic expansion of nuclear power would likely bring with it dramatically increased opportunity for theft.

[PamW]

3. Evidently the logic went over kristopher's head...

kristopher states
The number of thefts with the existing amount of opportunity shows that any dramatic expansion of nuclear power would likely bring with it dramatically increased opportunity for theft.

kristopher is telling us that the number of thefts will go up because of increased opportunity with the expansion of nuclear power.

Evidently, the missed the logic of the previous post.

These sources like radioactive iridium-192 which is used in nuclear medicine were stolen from HOSPITALS; not nuclear power plants.

There's no use for Ir-192 in a nuclear power plant. But Ir-192 is used in HOSPITALS which is where many of these sources were stolen from.

The increased opportunity of theft would increase if there were an increase in HOSPITALS; which were the victims of the thefts.

However, logic and reasoning don't matter; as long as there is a way to "smack talk" nuclear power; that's sufficient for more propaganda; no matter how logically ABSURD.

We know what the "prime directive" is for these types. However, the thinking members of DU don't have to be taken in by them.

PamW

[FBaggins]

4. Was that supposed to make sense?

How can you make the connection between nuclear power and the theft (sic) of radioactive materials that are shipped all around the world? None of the examples listed reactor fuel.

Why aren't you railing against radiotherapy facilities or advancing medical imaging labs... or medical sterilization facilities... equipment that checks pipelines for weaknesses... universities... etc? Those are the things you have to get rid of if you want these types of incidents to stop.

Yet another example of anti-nuke "logic" that says "if it has 'nuclear' in the name... it's all part of the same problem".

[kristopher]

5. Is someone advocating for a massive expansion of reactors for medical use?

I must have missed that.

You are once again playing fast and loose with the facts. A considerable number of the *known* incidents (how many have gone undiscovered) are related to civilian reactors for nuclear energy. Any large scale expansion of nuclear power comes along with a correspondingly increased threat of diversion of nuclear materials.

Anonymous nuclear proponents on the internet can deny that all they wish, but the literature on the consequences of expansion of nuclear power from within the nuclear community makes clear that the concern is real.

[FBaggins]

6. Did you just miss the point... or was that an intentional dodge?

How does the theft/loss of material that has nothing to do with the number of reactors (and isn't reactor fuel) imply that we shouldn't build more reactors?

You could use it to say that we shouldn't do more of whatever activities caused the material to actually be at risk of theft... but you can't implicate power generating reactors when they aren't involved (other than sometimes in the initial creation of the materials).

A considerable number of the *known* incidents (how many have gone undiscovered) are related to civilian reactors for nuclear energy.

You're the one playing "fast and loose"... in what way are they "related"?

[kristopher]

7. "How does the theft/loss of material that has nothing to do with the number of reactors"

"the theft/loss of material that has nothing to do with the number of reactors "

That is not a factual statement.

[FBaggins]

8. Dodging again?

How is it related apart from the fact that a reactor created it?

[kristopher]

9. Your quoted statement is pure bullshit.

At least pamgreg had the sense to qualify the claim.

[FBaggins]

11. Are you going to dodge all day?

In what way is it BS?

Once again... HOW are these thefts/losses related to power reactors?

For isntance... the theft that was in the news recently was Cobalt 60. ALL of that in the US is produced at a single reactor...(and somebody has to make the stuff). How on earth do even 500 new reactors increase the danger of Cobalt being stolen?

[PamW]

12. FBaggins is CORRECT, and kristopher is 100% WRONG!!!

Radioactive sources are typically produced at a Government-owned reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

That reactor is the High Flux Isotope Reactor or HFIR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFIR

http://neutrons.ornl.gov/about/

HFIR is the highest flux reactor-based neutron source for condensed matter research in the United States. Completed in 1965, HFIR’s main goal at that time was the production of isotopes, primarily for medical use.

Contrary to the ill-founded assertions of kristopher; commercial power reactors are NOT used for the production of "radiation sources" of the type that were stolen in the litany of incidents.

When someone can't properly interpret what they read because they haven't studied the field, and don't have the background knowledge to properly interpret the material being read; then posts related to that material on the forum should best be IGNORED because they are in all probability 100% WRONG. Unfortunately, the it seems the more WRONG someone is; the more vigorously they attempt to defend their ERRORS.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[oldhippie]

19. You are just digging yourself deeper and deeper .....

.... sometimes it's downright embarrassing to see on

[PamW]

10. WHO is playing fast and loose with the facts?????

kristopher states
You are once again playing fast and loose with the facts.

Actually it is kristopher that is playing fast and loose with the facts.

READ the article. The items that were stolen were SOURCES.

"Sources" here refers to radiation sources. Those are bits of radioactive material that serve as a source for radiation. These sources are used in diagnostic and theraputic medical applications in lieu of an X-ray machine for example. Does anyone know someone who has had "radiation treatments" for cancer? Those "radiation treatments" were done using radiation from the "radiation sources" that were stolen as reported in the original article.

Or the radiation sources are used for imaging welds in the petroleum industry and other industrial applications. Again, they are used in lieu of an X-ray machine since the gamma rays produced by these radiation sources are higher energy and more penetrating than would come from an X-ray machine.

These sources are used in MEDICAL and INDUSTRIAL applications. They are useful in diagnostics such as imaging; both medical and industrial.

Again because of kristopher's LACK of scientific acumen; he MISUNDERSTANDS the article.

He "thinks" that these are thefts from nuclear power plants and claims the literature is full of these incidents.

That's just his FAULTY UNDERSTANDING, it's what one gets when one doesn't have the technical qualifications to understand what one is reading.

The litany of locations where these thefts have occurred are NOT at nuclear reactors.

For example, the Ir-192 source stolen in Abu Dhabi specifically states "Radiography equipment"

I think most here understand what "radiography equipment" is; it's used to take what are commonly called "X-rays".

FBaggins is correct; this is more "shallow understanding"; if it has the word "nuclear" or "radiation" in it; then it must be from a nuclear power plant.

The medical and industrial communities use "radiation sources" for such things as radiography, all the time; and it has NOTHING to do with reactors.

The radioactive material like spent fuel that comes from nuclear power plants is NOT easily transported or stolen.

For example; a typical fuel assembly is about 12 feet long and require LOTS of shielding.

NONE, repeat NONE, NONE, NONE of the incidents above are radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
There are some incidents of fresh fuel from research reactors; however that is small in amount. Additionally, fresh fuel is not irradiated and is no more radioactive than when it was taken out of the ground. When I was a kid, I sent for a mail-order science kit that had a natural radioactive source for the Wilson cloud chamber experiment that is more radioactive than fresh fuel.

It's all due to MISUNDERSTANDING or DECEPTION; I can't decide which.

As the old maxim goes, "Don't ascribe to malice, that which can be explained..."

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[kristopher]

24. "READ the article. The items that were stolen were SOURCES."

The entire "article" is one paragraph and the infographic.

The list clearly includes other materials than what you claim.

[PamW]

26. NOPE!!!

kristopher states
The list clearly includes other materials than what you claim.

NOPE!!!!

If you had any training in science and technology; you would know what I said was FACTUAL.

That's the problem; you don't have the background to INTERPRET what you read properly. Your MISINTERPRETATIONS and MISUNDERSTANDING is what is leading you to post FALSE conclusions.

Quit attempting to use your own interpretations of what you read. You don't have the correct background, unless you have some training / degree in the sciences that you haven't told us about.

Care to tell us your scientific education?

PamW

[NNadir]

22. Your vast ignorance of nuclear technology is obviated here.

Nuclear power saves lives, and nuclear medicine saves lives as well.

Apparently, your radiation paranoia extends to medical uses as well.

By contrast, ignorance kills people, and there are no critics of nuclear technology on this website who are anything but ignorant. There is not one who understands for instance that Cobalt-60 and Iodine-125 (the latter of which I have worked with extensively) are both prepared in accelerators, have nothing to do with nuclear power, and are prepared exclusively for the purpose of saving human lives.

According to dumb guys whining over the more than half a century of nuclear power operations, including the gas and oil flake Amory Lovins, the theft of nuclear materials was supposed to end in all kinds of nuclear wars.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/33962/amory-b-lovins-l-hunter-lovins-and-leonard-ross/nuclear-power-and-nuclear-bombs

Being a dumb anti-nuke now working for dangerous fossil fuel companies and collecting oodles of money from them, he reported in 1980, in the above linked festival of fear and ignorance that nuclear power was dying and it was a good thing, because if it wasn't dead, the result would be nuclear war.

Since 1980, nuclear power production on this planet increased 400%, and the number of nuclear wars observed is zero. The number of oil wars fought on behalf of the companies that Amory Lovins greenwashs is not zero.

Since 1980, 0.7 trillion metric tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste have been dumped into the planetary atmosphere by people and companies like the one Amory Lovins, idiot anti-nuke, works for.

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=regions&syid=1980&eyid=2011&unit=MMTCD

The concentration of dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere - destroyed in large part by the mindless paranoid excesses of the Lovins crowd - has risen more than 50 ppm.

ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt

Close to 100 million people died from air pollution in this period.

And what do we have here?

A cut and paste piece of garbage trying to kill people with fear and ignorance by appealing to cases that have killed no one.

For this grand tragedy can any of the anti-nuke paranoids identify as many deaths as will take place in the next hour from air pollution? The next ten minutes? The next sixty seconds? One death?

Humanity deserves what it's going to get because there are a subset of very, very, very, very, very ignorant people who for reasons that remain mysterious, have been taken seriously although there is no rational reason to do so.

Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

[madokie]

13. Pretty sobering isn't it?

funny how so many in this world are wrong except for a couple, huh.

[PamW]

14. DU is fortunate...

In science, or any other objective field of knowledge, facts are NOT decided by a vote.

There is the story about Albert Einstein who was once told that there were 12 other scientists that could prove that he was wrong about the Theory of Relativity. Einstein remarked, "Why 12? If the argument is any good; all it takes is ONE."

When it comes to knowledge of science, and the nuclear field in particular, DU is graced with TWO people who know what they are talking about.

The rest; not so much.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[kristopher]

15. Yes it is.

Additional reading

First, for nuclear energy programs to be developed and managed safely and securely, it is important that states have domestic “good governance” char- acteristics that will encourage proper nuclear operations and management. These characteristics include low de- grees of corruption (to avoid officials selling materials and technology for their own personal gain as occurred with the A.Q. Khan smuggling network in Pakistan), high degrees of political stability (defined by the World Bank as “likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including politically-motivated violence and terrorism”), high governmental effectiveness scores (a World Bank aggregate measure of “the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures [and] the quality of policy formulation and implementation”), and a strong degree of regulatory competence. Fortunately, we have a great deal of information measuring these domestic good governance factors across the globe. Unfortunately, the data highlight the grave security challenges that would be created if there were rampant proliferation of nuclear energy production facilities to each and every state that has expressed interest to the IAEA in acquiring nuclear power. The World Bank publishes annual aggregate data, derived from multiple sources, on each of these good governance characteris- tics, and, as shown in Figure 2, the average scores of the potential new nuclear-energy states on each of these dimensions is significantly lower than the scores of states already possessing nuclear energy.

Second, all nonnuclear weapon states under the NPT must accept IAEA safeguards inspections on their nuclear power facilities in order to reduce the danger that governments might cheat on their commitments not to use the technology to acquire nuclear weapons; therefore, it is illuminating to examine the historical record of NNWS violating their NPT commitments. Here there is one very important ending about how domestic political characteristics influence the behavior of NPT members: each known or strongly suspected case of a government starting a secret nuclear weapons program, while it was a member of the NPT and thus violating its Article II NPT commitment, was undertaken by a non-democratic government.2 (The confirmed or suspected historical cases of NPT member states starting nuclear weapons programs in violation of their Treaty commitments include North and South Korea, Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Taiwan, Iran, and Syria, all of which were non-democratic at the time in question.) It is therefore worrisome that, as Figure 2 shows, the group of potential new states seeking nuclear power capabilities is on average significantly less democratic than the list of existing states with nuclear energy capabilities.

Third, states that face significant terrorist threats from within face particular challenges in ensuring that there is no successful terrorist attack on a nuclear facility or no terrorist theft of fissile material to make a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb. Figure 3 displays data from the United States Counterterrorism Center comparing the five-year totals of terrorism incidents in the existing states that have nuclear power facilities and the IAEA list of aspiring states. India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear weapons and nuclear power facilities and which face severe terrorist threats from homegrown and outsider terrorist organizations, clearly lead the pack. But as Figure 3 shows, the states that are exploring developing nuclear power would take up six of the slots on a “terrorist top ten risk list” if each of them develops civilian nuclear power in the future.
<snip>

Concerns about proliferation (whether to states or terrorists) arise at the intersection of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Indeed, the connection between power and weapons is somewhat inevitable because key technologies in the nuclear sector–notably, uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities–are relevant to both. In the nonproliferation context, this is the dual-use dilemma: many technologies associated with the creation of a nuclear power program can be used to make weapons if a state chooses to do so. When a state seems motivated to acquire nuclear weapons, a nuclear power program in that state can appear to be simply a route leading to the bomb or a public annex to a secret bomb program. The crisis over Iran’s nuclear activities is a case in point. Depending on what capabilities spread to which states, especially regarding uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, a world of widely spread nuclear technologies could be a world in which more states, like Iran, would have the latent capability to manufacture nuclear weapons. This could easily be a world filled with much more worry about the risk of nuclear proliferation–and worse, a world where more states possess nuclear weapons. A fundamental goal for American and global security is to minimize the proliferation risks associated with the expansion of nuclear power. If this development is poorly managed or efforts to contain risks are unsuccessful, the nuclear future will be dangerous.

Steven E. Miller & Scott D. Sagan
Nuclear power without nuclear proliferation?
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/daed.2009.138.4.7

"Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements"
Journal Article, International Security, volume 34, issue 1, pages 7-41
Summer 2009
Author: Matthew Fuhrmann

SUMMARY
Peaceful nuclear cooperation-the transfer of nuclear technology, materials, or know-how from one state to another for peaceful purposes-leads to the spread of nuclear weapons. In particular, countries that receive peaceful nuclear assistance are more likely to initiate weapons programs and successfully develop the bomb, especially when they are also faced with security threats. Statistical analysis based on a new data set of more than 2,000 bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreements signed from 1950 to 2000 lends strong support for this argument. Brief case studies of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons programs provide further evidence of the links between peaceful nuclear assistance and proliferation. The finding that supplier countries inadvertently raise the risks of nuclear proliferation poses challenges to the conventional wisdom. Indeed, the relationship between civilian nuclear cooperation and proliferation is surprisingly broad. Even assistance that is often viewed as innocuous, such as training nuclear scientists or providing research or power reactors, increases the likelihood that nuclear weapons will spread. "Proliferation-proof" nuclear assistance does not exist. With a renaissance in nuclear power on the horizon, major suppliers, including the United States, should reconsider their willingness to assist other countries in developing peaceful nuclear programs.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19317/spreading_temptation.html

"Peaceful nuclear cooperation-the transfer of nuclear technology, materials, or know-how from one state to another for peaceful purposes-leads to the spread of nuclear weapons."

""Proliferation-proof" nuclear assistance does not exist."

[PamW]

16. Oppenheimer quote about radioisotopes...

kristopher,

If nuclear proliferation is the reason for your concern about these radioisotopes; then you can be assured by the testimony of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb" to Congress.

In the '50s, then AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss was concerned about the fact that the AEC was shipping radioisotopes to other nations, and Strauss was afraid that the USA was giving these other nations the means to construct atomic bombs. Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer answered that concern in his testimony to Congress:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer

These enemies included Lewis Strauss, an AEC commissioner who had long harbored resentment against Oppenheimer both for his activity in opposing the hydrogen bomb and for his humiliation of Strauss before Congress some years earlier; regarding Strauss's opposition to the export of radioactive isotopes to other nations, Oppenheimer had memorably categorized these as "less important than electronic devices but more important than, let us say, vitamins."

PamW

[kristopher]

18. The list of lost and stolen material is not limited as you are claiming.

There are ample sources already posted (included the infographic) to show you are once again saying black is white.

[PamW]

20. Because I said so!!

Once again, we see kristopher's tactic of proof by assertion.

We are supposed to believe kristopher just because HE says something; offered with ZERO substantiation.

A well worn discussion tactic; that ranks right up there with what one hears on the children's playground:

Because I said so!

YAWN!!!

PamW

[kristopher]

17. Existing and aspiring nuclear power states

[PamW]

21. "..at least I won't be unoriginal."

"...at least I won't be unoriginal."
--Will Hunting ( Matt Damon ) from the movie "Good Will Hunting".

Scientists have heard this old LIE from the Union of Concerned Scientists over and over, about diversion from enrichment plants.

What they don't tell you is that the reactor fuel is about 3% to 4% U-235; when the material required for bombs called HEU for Highly Enriched Uranium is 93% U-235.

You can divert all the 3% enriched fuel you want; you can NOT make a bomb out of it.

As for the Yucca Mountain claim; spent fuel is about 95% to 96% U-238. That U-238 is no more radioactive and no more dangerous than the day it was dug out of the ground. There's ZERO reason U-238 has to be put into Yucca Mountain; except that's what the anti-nukes want so that it limits the available space.

It's like restricting the size of your curbside garbage bin so that the amount you put in the landfill is limited. But then requiring that the fallen leaves you rake up have to go into the garbage instead of being mulch on your lawn.

Of course, if we allowed recycling / reprocessing; we wouldn't need Yucca Mountain.

The French reprocess / recycle and they are not hollowing out one of the Alps.

PamW

[kristopher]

23. That's a presentation by John Holdren, one of the MIT 2003 nuclear study authors

Dr. John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Prior to joining the Obama administration Dr. Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. Previously he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded in 1973 and co-led until 1996 the interdisciplinary graduate-degree program in energy and resources. During the Clinton administration Dr. Holdren served as a member of PCAST through both terms and in that capacity chaired studies requested by President Clinton on preventing theft of nuclear materials, disposition of surplus weapon plutonium, the prospects of fusion energy, U.S. energy R&D strategy, and international cooperation on energy-technology innovation.

Dr. Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a foreign member of the Royal Society of London and former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served as a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Board of Trustees from 1991 to 2005, as Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control from 1994 to 2005, and as Co-Chair of the independent, bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy from 2002 to 2009. His awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. In December 1995 he gave the acceptance lecture for the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization of scientists and public figures in which he held leadership positions from 1982 to 1997.

[PamW]

25. DOES NOT MATTER!!!

I don't care WHAT Holdren's credentials are IF he said that someone can make a nuclear weapon out of 3% enriched reactor fuel; then he is just PLAIN WRONG!!!.

However, I doubt that Holdren actually said something like that because it is STUPID.

More likely, someone has TWISTED and DISTORTED something that Holdren said into the FALSE statements above.

Since you NEVER give us direct quotes by people; we only get third or fourth hand accounts; and then the statement is claimed accurate because of the credentials of the original author; independent of how the statement has been MORPHED and DISTORTED into something else.

But the clear scientific FACTS are that 3% enriched uranium reactor fuel can NOT be used to make a nuclear weapons, and practically all Physicists know that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design

Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb, used 141 lb (64 kg) of uranium with an average enrichment of around 80%, or 112 lb (51 kg) of U-235, just about the bare-metal critical mass.

where as nuclear power reactor fuel is 3% to 5%:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium#Low-enriched_uranium_.28LEU.29

Low-enriched uranium (LEU) has a lower than 20% concentration of 235U. For use in commercial light water reactors (LWR), the most prevalent power reactors in the world, uranium is enriched to 3 to 5% U-235

If Holdren says that 5% LEU can be used as the fuel for a nuclear bomb; then he is STUPID.

But I doubt he said that. He is just being MISREPRESENTED as saying that.

PamW

[kristopher]

27. Less Well Known Cases of Nuclear Terrorism and Nuclear Diversion in Russia

Aug. 20, 1997
Abstract:
Nuclear terrorism can take a variety of forms. The most frequently discussed form involves a terrorist group either stealing a nuclear weapon or building a nuclear device using stolen or illegally purchased nuclear material. In the former Soviet Union today, however, a more plausible situation involves an attack on or sabotage of civilian nuclear power facilities or spent fuel storage sites. There have been at least seven incidents since 1992 in which nuclear terrorism was threatened or used in Russia, five of which have involved nuclear power facilities.

The first three incidents occurred at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Lithuania. The first occurred in February 1992, when authorities arrested a computer programmer named Oleg Savchuk on charges of trying to sabotage the reactor with a computer virus. Two-and-a-half years later, on 4 November 1994, Swedish authorities arrested Kestutis Mazuika, a Lithuanian citizen who delivered a letter to the Swedish prime minister's office that threatened the destruction of the Ignalina NPP unless a payment was made to the secret organization NUC-41 'W.' Mr. Mazuika was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison in Sweden, but was released after one year. He was then returned to Lithuania, where he was charged with 'Extortion of State Property' under Article 96 of the Lithuanian Criminal Code. He was not sentenced in Lithuania because of the Swedish prison term. The third incident at Ignalina occurred just a few days after Mr. Mazuika's threat. On 9 November 1994, the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Conservation, and Nuclear Safety notified the Lithuanian Nuclear Safety Inspectorate about information it had received regarding a plot to sabotage the Ignalina NPP. The plot involved Georgy Dekanidze, who threatened to blow the plant up in the event that his son Boris, on trial for murder, was sentenced to death. The threat was taken very seriously, and Units 1 and 2 of the plant were temporarily shut down as bomb experts and search dogs looked for evidence of sabotage. No such evidence was found and Dekanidze failed to follow through with his threats.

In addition, there have been at least two incidents at Russian nuclear power plants. In fall 1996, Gosatomnadzor (the Russian Nuclear Regulatory Agency) received an alert that an armed group of Chechens was moving towards the Balakovo NPP. All Russian nuclear facilities were given instructions to be on guard against possible terrorist actions. A Chechen group was spotted along the Volga River, but did not stop near the Balakovo reactor. It is unclear whether or not the group intended to target the reactor. In spring 1997, Russian authorities caught five men who had penetrated the Kursk NPP. The men, who probably had intended to attempt extortion, had reached the plant generator and allegedly had plans to overrun the control room and disable the reactor. Lastly, there were at least two known terrorist incidents that did not take place at nuclear power plants. The first, in 1995, was a terrorist threat in which an unpaid employee of the Severodinsk submarine production facility threatened the destruction of two reactors. Then in late 1995, a small amount of Cesium-137 was recovered in Moscow's Izmailovsky Park, placed there by Chechen separatists who claimed that they had buried four such radioactive sources in the park.

Regarding nuclear diversion, many analysts have concluded that the lull in illicit nuclear trafficking since the recovery of 2.72 kg of HEU in Prague in December 1994 indicates that the threat of nuclear diversion has greatly diminished. However, it is possible that important instances of diversion have been missed. At the April 1996 Moscow Nuclear Safety and Security Summit, Moscow pledged increased intelligence sharing, but it is doubtful that Moscow has provided any real information on this issue. There have been credible reports of proliferation-significant nuclear trafficking since December 1994. For example, in 1996 authorities in Belarus intercepted suspects possessing HEU that Russian and Georgian officials believe may have originated in Sukhumi, Georgia. Sukhumi is located in an area under the control of ethnic Abkhaz rebels and is not under IAEA safeguards. Neither the Russian nor the Georgian government is sure how much of the approximately 2 kg of weapons-usable HEU that was at Sukhumi in 1992 remains at the site. In a separate case, Gosatomnadzor reported the loss of about 1 kg of fresh HEU fuel enriched to 90% from Tomsk Polytechnical University in mid-1996. This material may accidentally have been included in a batch of spent fuel sent to Tomsk-7 (SKHK) in late 1994 or early 1995. Tomsk-7 officials have said that it would be impossible to try to find the material.

In addition, there have been cases...

http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/less-well-known-cases-nuclear-terrorism-and-nuclear-diversion-russia/