-Caveat Lector- Bunker-busters set to go nuclear David Hambling 07 November 2002
The US government is set to fund research into a new type of nuclear weapon that is designed to penetrate and obliterate deeply buried targets such as underground weapons bunkers. Coming 50 years after the world's first hydrogen bomb was detonated in the Pacific, the news has alarmed scientists opposed to nuclear proliferation. They say the thousands of tonnes of radioactive debris produced by a bunker-busting nuclear weapon would not be contained within the rock, concrete and soil above the target, but would contaminate a wide area around it. Funding of $15 million has been proposed for research into the so-called Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), as part of the government's draft Defense Authorisation Bill for 2003. But the bill has not yet been passed by the Senate Committee on Armed Services. While a decision has been delayed until after this week's Congressional elections, a source close to the committee says the RNEP will get the green light. Research into the nuclear bunker-buster follows the Bush administration's leaked Nuclear Posture Review, which in part set out the circumstances under which nuclear weapons might be used. It says the RNEP could be used in pre-emptive strikes against rogue states using deeply buried facilities to store weapons of mass destruction, for example. "Mini-nukes" The RNEP would be used on targets that may be immune to conventional weapons. Its backers claim it would create little contamination above ground, but critics say that it would produce huge amounts of nuclear fallout. The RNEP may also remove the distinction between a nuclear deterrent and conventional weapons, increasing the risk of a nuclear exchange. US law prevents development of new "mini-nukes" that have an explosive yield of less than 5 kilotons. But the RNEP falls outside this ban because it is not a new weapon. Rather, it will be a modification of an existing nuclear bomb, probably a highly modified B61, sources say, a weapon whose explosive yield can be set from anything between 0.3 and 340 kilotons. The bomb uses fission at low yields but is a fusion (hydrogen) bomb at high yields. The Hiroshima fission bomb had a yield of 12 kilotons. Underground explosions are 10 to 15 times as effective against buried facilities as airbursts. A conventional bunker-buster is dropped from high altitude and hits the ground at enormous speed. It penetrates earth, rock and concrete before exploding. A nuclear version has the advantage of a far more powerful shock wave, increasing the depth of its destructive effect. The US already has around fifty 'penetrating' nuclear weapons in its stockpile, but these can only reach a depth of six metres in earth. David Wright, a nuclear-weapons expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC, says this would not be nearly enough to contain the radioactivity. "Even for a 0.3-kiloton explosion, you would need a burial depth of about 70 metres in dry soil and about 40 metres in dry, hard rock to contain the blast," Wright says. An explosion at the maximum depth achievable so far would throw thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive debris into the air. Velocity threshold Moreover, Wright's calculations show that a warhead of this size at the depths currently possible would only destroy a hardened target buried less than 10 to 20 metres deep in rock. Some Iraqi facilities are said to be under 60 metres of rock, requiring a warhead of hundreds of kilotons, which would cause unacceptable devastation above ground. But a study by the Federation of American Scientists concludes that greater penetration with the RNEP is unlikely, as there is a threshold at which increasing impact velocities simply cause the warhead to deform and melt. Attempting to make the RNEP and its warhead robust enough to withstand impact will require extensive research and development. Weapons designers at three Department of Energy labs - Lawrence Livermore in California, and Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico - will have to come up with the new ground-penetration technology. Sandia has already patented a new penetrator (see graphic). While the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty bars any test with a live warhead, this would not prevent the RNEP's use untested. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993016 <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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