Reply #14: U238. AKA Depleted Uranium. [View All]

[TheMadMonk]

If you wrap it around a hydrogen bomb, it will explode. No lesser force will set of U238 in bulk.

An ounce or so in a phial if burnt might conceiveably cause a few cancers if burnt and the fumes inhaled. Or perhaps if ingested. Otherwise it's only weapon value is in the form of a high density projectile.


50 kg of clean top grade uranium ore will yield perhaps 250g of weapon's grade material if perfectly refined and separated.

So with the whole two tons (if it were the good stuff) mentioned and a few hundred million in rather esoteric enrichment equipment, you could have enough to make one bomb. And maybe a few scraps to spare. In about a year.


Fortunately Uranium is a bastard to enrich, because building a bomb from it really is a trivial exercise.


In another time and another place, this fellow would be figuring how many trips it will take to get Lady Liberty to the scrap merchant, and whether it's worth getting cousin Clem's pickup back on the road.

Or he'd be selling her three times a day to bumpkins.

Someone here is selling a pig in a poke, all on the strength of what would appear to be a university (or perhaps high school) laboratory sample. And perhaps a tiny pocket of low grade ore somewhere.

Uranium isn't all that hard to find. Finding it in commercially minable quantities is a different matter entirely. Small one or two man operations, not too heavily burdened by regulation might successfully work the smaller pockets, but ultimately they have to sell and buyers for unrefined uranium ore are few and far between, and those buyers are under no obligation to offer anything resembling fair market price. IIRC the SW US is peppered with failed Uranium stakes.


Just a little basic knowledge about the materials involved and how they are used, is enough to see just how inoccuous (and begging of the credulity of some of the parties involved) the contents of this cable are. Perhaps this fellow's first interviewer might have been credulous and ignorant enough to perceive a threat, but you can bet you bottom dollar someone was giggling at either this bloke's stupidity or his belief in their (US) stupidity before the cable was composed and sent. But of course it could always be dressed up as a threat, or threat thwarted, so off to Washinton it goes.

Please note: I am not belittling the potential threat inherent in an unrestricted trade in nuclear materials, just putting this particular joke of a threat in perspective.

Certain individuals taking an unpopular stance here at the moment, might also note that a serious offer to sell serious nuclear materials in ANY quantity would not receive a security classification below TOP SECRET. Move along people, there is in fact nothing to see here.