Helium-3 Shortage Could Mean Nuke Detection ‘Disaster’

[n2doc]

By admin April 29, 2010 | 10:31 am | Categories: Nukes


Stopping nuclear smuggling was already tough. But it’s about to get a lot harder. Helium-3, a crucial ingredient in neutron particle detection technology, is in extremely short supply.

Rep. Brad Miller, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, chided the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security at a hearing on the issue late last week, suggesting that they created a preventable “disaster.” The Energy Department is the sole supplier of American helium-3, and DHS is supposed to take the lead in spotting and stopping illicit nuclear material.

The helium-3 isotope represents less than 0.0002 percent of all helium. Of that, about 80 percent of helium-3 usage is devoted to security purposes because the gas is extremely sensitive to neutrons, like those emitted spontaneously by plutonium. Helium-3 is a decay product of tritium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen used to enhance the yield of nuclear weapons but whose production stopped in 1988. The decay of tritium is about 12 years and the U.S. supply for helium-3 is fed by harvesting the gas from dismantled or refurbished nuclear weapons. However, production of helium-3 hasn’t kept pace with the exponential demand sparked by the September 11 attacks.

Projected demand for the non-radioactive gas in 2010 was said to be over 76,000 liters per year while U.S. production is a mere 8,000 liters, annually, and U.S. total supply rests at less than 48,000 liters. This shortage wasn’t identified until a workshop put on by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Physics, in August 2008. Between 2004 and 2008, about 25,000 liters of helium-3 were entering the U.S. from Russia, according to the testimony of Dr. William F. Brinkman, director of the Office of Science at DOE. Right around the time of the August workshop, Russia then decided it was “reserving its supplies for domestic use.”



Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/helium-3-shortage-could-mean-nuke-detection-disaster/

[Orsino]

1. Hmm. Maybe we should encourage Iran's nuclear program...

...and buy from them.

[Phoonzang]

2. We should rethink that Moon program cancellation maybe? nt

[NNadir]

3. It is relatively straight forward to get helium-3.

It's the decay daughter of tritium, which is available in kg quantities, largely from Canada.

However Canada has been reluctant to sell tritium to the United States because of fear of weapons diversion.

It is also relatively straight forward to detect neutrons and tritium is not really necessary to do that. Many neutron detectors use, for instance, the element neptunium. Another option is americium, the same stuff used in smoke detectors.

The nuclear terrorism scare is largely bullshit though, and it's a tempest in a tea pot. Mostly we need to control observed means of terrorism, which means, um, oil detectors.

Oil terrorism is well known at took place in the United States at a place called "The World Trade Center" and another place called "The Murrah Building" in Oklahoma.

If one really, really, really, really wants helium-3, a good place to start would be to dismantle some useless hydrogen bombs, collect the tritium, fission any plutonium or U-235 in a reactor, and wait for the tritium from the dismantled bomb to decay.