Are we ignoring the most serious threat?

[Mariner]

This month's Scientific American has a good article by a pair of Princeton physicists concerning "HEU," highly enriched uranium.

25 kg (55 pounds) of HEU is enough to build a nuclear bomb. HEU's found in 140 civilian facilities--often poorly guarded--around the world. Khazakstan and Uzbekistan have between 100 and 1000 kg each, while Russia has over 10,000 kg. Russian nuclear scientists, often unpaid or underpaid, have already been caught stealing--no one knows how much HEU is missing.

HEU is hardly necessary to nuclear power or research any more. New technology permits replacing it with LEU. As the article points out, however, we have been agonizingly slow to assist the world with this transition. The FY 2005 Bush budget for this activity was $70 million. At this rate, it will be 2014 and 2020 before various goals in the conversion and safety process are completed.

Consider the vast expense--tens of billions of dollars--of the Bush/Reagan Star Wars plan, which, even if it worked (which is highly questionable), would defend us only against ICBMs. This defends us from the few places able to launch ICBMs. It seems much more likely to me that we'll be the victim of a bomb made from a few kilograms of HEU. The authors suggest that terrorists could simply smuggle a few kilograms of HEU into a building, improvise a gun-type detonation device of the type used in Hiroshima bomb, and blow a U.S. city to smithereens.

We can't blame only the Russians. We ourselves gave HEU technology to countries around the world during the cold war. We owe it to ourselves to clean it all up now. Shouldn't we spend a few billion dollars and end this risk--which is perhaps the gravest risk we face? Why, after 9/11 showed that we're vulnerable, are we dawdling?

Mariner.

 

[Mr. P]

Are we ignoring the most serious threat?

No.

 

[Mariner]

it's impossible that terrorists could acquire 25kg of highly enriched uranium, so we needn't speed up the process of diluting it... it's just fine if we stretch that out for another decade or more? Why? Doesn't it make more sense to make every effort to secure it and dilute it to where it can't be made into a weapon? The costs would hardly be exorbitant. A week's worth of Iraq expenditures would safeguard most of it permanently. Sounds like a smart deal to me.

Mariner.

 

[archangel]

the bad guys already have a few suitcase nukes...I think our government is more concerned about locating these! :huh:

 

[manu1959]

the bad guys already have a few suitcase nukes...I think our government is more concerned about locating these! :huh:

if you had these wouldn't you have used them by now

 

[Hobbit]

if you had these wouldn't you have used them by now

9/11 took a decade of planning just to knock down two buildings and damage a third, and it didn't even go completely as planned. I imagine they'd want to put the same kind of planning into both sneaking in the nukes and maximizing their effects, or even more so thanks to homeland security. Something as rare as a suitcase nuke isn't going to be something they just blow up at the first possible opportunity.

 

[manu1959]

9/11 took a decade of planning just to knock down two buildings and damage a third, and it didn't even go completely as planned. I imagine they'd want to put the same kind of planning into both sneaking in the nukes and maximizing their effects, or even more so thanks to homeland security. Something as rare as a suitcase nuke isn't going to be something they just blow up at the first possible opportunity.

i would have used it by now

 

[Gunny]

i would have used it by now

We are so vulnerable to attack it's pathetic. The people against securing our borders obviously have forgotten the first rule of freedom ... you have to be alive to enjoy it.

 

[Mariner]

I need you, to label Hobbit and Archangel "defeatist" for thinking that since it's possible that enough uranium has already been stolen to make a bomb, we shouldn't bother safeguarding the rest.

The Scientific American article showed a picture of a civilian site secured with a single barbed wire fence, rusted and bent enough that one could crawl right through it. We want to leave nuclear material in the open like that? Why? Finish the job by 2020? Why? Kerry pressed Bush on this in the '04 debates, and he promised to act, but he has not: he raised funding for this program last year a feeble 25%.

I agree, GunnyL, we're pathetically vulnerable. The big oceans protected this country for so long that there's an ongoing feeling we're somehow invulnerable.

Mariner.

 

[Mr. P]

it's impossible that terrorists could acquire 25kg of highly enriched uranium, so we needn't speed up the process of diluting it... it's just fine if we stretch that out for another decade or more? Why? Doesn't it make more sense to make every effort to secure it and dilute it to where it can't be made into a weapon? The costs would hardly be exorbitant. A week's worth of Iraq expenditures would safeguard most of it permanently. Sounds like a smart deal to me.

Mariner.

Well, that’s not what I said, is it. This is MUCH more complex that just diluting stock, and it’s NOT being ignored.
Here are two very interesting (LONG) examples.

In the end it seems more security and international cooperation are the key issues faced by the world, not just the USA.

http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/reducing/heudispose.asp

http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/overview/path.asp

 

[theHawk]

Can you explain how exactly we can 'safeguard' against this, especially with 'one weeks' worth of Iraq war spending?

 

[Mariner]

I'm not an expert of any kind in this area--it's just something that has worried me for a long time--since long before 9/11.

Yes, of course the "dilution" procedure is technically complicated, but the Sci Am piece makes it clear that we have the technology now to replace almost all HEU with LEU, and we have the cooperation of the vast majority of the world's governments in doing so. Russia is a bit of an exception, but they have been willing to work site by site to secure their materials better.

Your first piece concerns reducing HEU's in the U.S. I see nothing there that seems "too complicated" for physicists and nuclear engineers to do. Indeed, they've been working hard on the technologies to shape LEU fuel rods into HEU configurations for years. Your second, to me, simply confirms the necessity for doing this as quickly as possible. They quote Sam Nunn:

"Acquiring weapons and materials is the hardest step for the terrorists to take, and the easiest step for us to stop."

The war in Iraq is costing an estimated $ 177 million per day.

Bush's current budget for safeguarding and converting highly enriched uranium is $70 million dollars per year. The physicists in the Sci Am piece say the holdup is not technical--it's financial and political. Hence, one week's worth of Iraq war spending would cover over 14 years of HEU safeguarding, which would take us to Bush's 2020 endpoint.

Why not buy a copy of Scientific American, read the piece yourself, and see what you think? Maybe I'm missing something, but they seem to be saying we could be doing this much faster than we are, and wondering why we're not, given the enormous risk.

Mariner.

 

[archangel]

I need you, to label Hobbit and Archangel "defeatist" for thinking that since it's possible that enough uranium has already been stolen to make a bomb, we shouldn't bother safeguarding the rest.

The Scientific American article showed a picture of a civilian site secured with a single barbed wire fence, rusted and bent enough that one could crawl right through it. We want to leave nuclear material in the open like that? Why? Finish the job by 2020? Why? Kerry pressed Bush on this in the '04 debates, and he promised to act, but he has not: he raised funding for this program last year a feeble 25%.

I agree, GunnyL, we're pathetically vulnerable. The big oceans protected this country for so long that there's an ongoing feeling we're somehow invulnerable.

Mariner.

being that I spent my entire adult life in the military and law enforcement...well golly gee I put my first priority in the completed nuke!
If this is a defeatist well you must be Mr.Rogers!

 

[ScreamingEagle]

We are so vulnerable to attack it's pathetic. The people against securing our borders obviously have forgotten the first rule of freedom ... you have to be alive to enjoy it.

Pathetic is the word alright. I recently saw an expose done by ABC where they investigated a couple dozen of our college campuses that have nuclear reactors. They showed doors that were left unlocked/unguarded for hours. They showed people (girls mainly) who could easily talk their way in on the slightest excuse. Just about anybody could get right in, complete with uninspected backpacks that could easily hold bombs.

This article also addresses the money issue Mariner brought up:

The Nuclear Campus
By Matthew Bunn
October 20, 2005

FOUR YEARS after 9/11, most nuclear research reactors at universities across the United States are essentially undefended, with no guards on site, no fences or security cameras around the building, and few other security measures in place. Some of these facilities are fueled with highly enriched uranium, the easiest material in the world for terrorists to use to make a nuclear bomb.

With terrorist warnings and attacks clogging the airwaves, action is needed to get rid of the potential bomb uranium wherever possible and provide effective security where highly enriched uranium is still needed, both to reduce the dangers posed by these US facilities and to help the United States persuade other countries to do the same.

In 1986, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees these facilities, recognized the danger posed by the stores of highly enriched uranium and issued a rule requiring all the reactors it regulates to convert to low-enriched uranium, which could not be used as the core of a terrorist bomb. The reactors were directed to convert the moment that usable low-enriched uranium fuels were available, and the Department of Energy came up with the money to pay for it.

Almost two decades later, the job is still not done. There are still seven NRC-regulated reactors in the United States using the highly enriched fuel that could use low-enriched uranium already developed, and three more waiting on development of higher-density fuels. Not a single reactor has converted since 9/11. Why? Because the Energy Department has failed to cough up the money to pay for conversion (though it did help to convert 11 university reactors over the years).

At a price ranging from less than $1 million to a few million dollars to convert each reactor, the cost of getting rid of bomb uranium on campus is tiny when compared to the billions spent each year on national security. But it is big when compared to the pittance spent supporting nuclear research in the United States, which is the checkbook that has typically been drawn on for conversion.

Meanwhile, because the research reactors have so little money, the NRC has exempted them from nearly all of its security requirements. Under NRC rules, bomb uranium that would require an impressive security system and a substantial armed guard force if it were located anywhere else needs neither of those things if it is at a research reactor. A recent ABC News investigation documented the results -- reactors where no armed guards were in place, doors were left open, and visitors with large bags were allowed in without being searched.

Defenders of these lax security arrangements argue that most of the highly enriched fuel at research reactors would be too radioactively ''hot" for terrorists to steal and that chemically processing the fuel to get the bomb uranium out would be beyond terrorist capabilities. Unfortunately, neither of these arguments holds water -- particularly in the post 9/11 world of sophisticated and suicidal terrorists. One government study concluded that thieves would not even get enough radiation to make them seriously ill, and one of the leaders of nuclear chemistry in the Manhattan Project warned that turning the uranium into a usable terrorist tool is ''not beyond the ability of most students in introductory chemistry classes at the college level."

The Department of Energy should go beyond its recent decision to fund conversion of two university research reactors and set aside funds to convert all the remaining reactors, or simply shut down those aging facilities whose remaining scientific value does not justify the cost of conversion. Energy and other agencies should do the same with the government's own highly enriched uranium-fueled reactors not licensed by the NRC. At the same time, the NRC should phase out the research reactor exemption. Potential bomb uranium requires the same high standards of security wherever it is located.

Setting a good example has never been more important. As Mohamed ElBaradei, the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner, recently warned President Bush, similar highly enriched uranium-fueled research reactors exist in more than 40 countries. After that Bush-ElBaradei conversation, the Energy Department established a Global Threat Reduction Initiative designed to take on this problem. Bush needs to lead a fast-paced global effort to remove the potential bomb material from the world's most vulnerable sites and make sure that every remaining cache has security sufficient to defeat terrorist threats. To credibly lead that effort, the United States has to get its own house in order.

Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate in the Managing the Atom project at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is co-author of ''Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives."

 

[Psychoblues]

This month's Scientific American has a good article by a pair of Princeton physicists concerning "HEU," highly enriched uranium.

25 kg (55 pounds) of HEU is enough to build a nuclear bomb. HEU's found in 140 civilian facilities--often poorly guarded--around the world. Khazakstan and Uzbekistan have between 100 and 1000 kg each, while Russia has over 10,000 kg. Russian nuclear scientists, often unpaid or underpaid, have already been caught stealing--no one knows how much HEU is missing.

HEU is hardly necessary to nuclear power or research any more. New technology permits replacing it with LEU. As the article points out, however, we have been agonizingly slow to assist the world with this transition. The FY 2005 Bush budget for this activity was $70 million. At this rate, it will be 2014 and 2020 before various goals in the conversion and safety process are completed.

Consider the vast expense--tens of billions of dollars--of the Bush/Reagan Star Wars plan, which, even if it worked (which is highly questionable), would defend us only against ICBMs. This defends us from the few places able to launch ICBMs. It seems much more likely to me that we'll be the victim of a bomb made from a few kilograms of HEU. The authors suggest that terrorists could simply smuggle a few kilograms of HEU into a building, improvise a gun-type detonation device of the type used in Hiroshima bomb, and blow a U.S. city to smithereens.

We can't blame only the Russians. We ourselves gave HEU technology to countries around the world during the cold war. We owe it to ourselves to clean it all up now. Shouldn't we spend a few billion dollars and end this risk--which is perhaps the gravest risk we face? Why, after 9/11 showed that we're vulnerable, are we dawdling?

Mariner.

The most serious threat is one of religion and secondarilly of race. Oh My God, the brown muslims have the bomb!!!!!!!!! What, exactly are you trying to say, mariner?

Psychoblues

 

[Annie]

The most serious threat is one of religion and secondarilly of race. Oh My God, the brown people have the bomb!!!!!!!!! What, exactly are you trying to say, mariner?

Psychoblues

Assuming you mean the Persians, whoops Iranians, are you calling them 'brown people'?

 

[Psychoblues]

Assuming you mean the Persians, whoops Iranians, are you calling them 'brown people'?

Whoops, do you mean Iranians are not brown people? I never said anything of the kind, kathy. What a preposterous assumption.

I said that we have a religious, racial and political divide. I alluded that any of the above resent any consideration of the other. I further alluded that any such ignorance is unacceptable for me and for millions of other inhabitants of this WORLD that resent this WAR ON THE WORLD that American Republicans seem to represent. Are you still with me?

Psychoblues

 

[Annie]

Whoops, do you mean Iranians are not brown people? I never said anything of the kind, kathy. What a preposterous assumption.

I said that we have a religious, racial and political divide. I alluded that any of the above resent any consideration of the other. I further alluded that any such ignorance is unacceptable for me and for millions of other inhabitants of this WORLD that resent this WAR ON THE WORLD that American Republicans seem to represent. Are you still with me?

Psychoblues

Not that your response was coherent, but what I wrote in regards to was this:

Oh My God, the brown people have the bomb!!!!!!!!!