On 5/20/2014 11:45 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
2014-05-20 18:44 GMT+02:00 meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>: On 5/19/2014 11:48 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:These are valid criticisms that are very much not administrative nature but cut right to the core [pun intended] of a world in which a multitude of thorium U233 breeder reactors proliferate widely. There is a risk that this unintentionally leads to a proliferation of U233 (which can be relatively easily be chemically separated out from the thorium fluoride salt mix and purified into U233 metal)U233 isn't likely to proliferate because it is always mixed with U232 (which it can produce by decay) and U232, through its decay chain, produces intense gamma radiation. So it can only be handled and processed remotely. Even suicide bombers wouldn't last long enough to transport it very far. And the U232 makes it difficult to turn the U233 into a bomb because it's presence tends to make the bomb low yield. When making a U233 bomb they try to refine out all the U232.Thanks, but it's Chris which has written your quote... but what you say is what I remembered reading about U233 difficult extraction.
OOps. My apologies. The U233 can be separated from the Th232 by chemical means, which is relatively easy. But the U233 comes out contaminated by so much U232 that it won't make a bomb and refining the U233 is hard both because it's an isotope separation problem and also because the U232 is an intense gamma ray source.
Actually my worry about terrorists with nuclear material is that they would make a dirty bomb - which doesn't need any refinement or special equipment. In fact they could make a dirty bomb from medical radiological materials. Mishandling those is the major cause of radiation induced accidental deaths - not power plants.
Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
