5 ms·

In the 1960s, hundreds of pounds of uranium went missing in Pennsylvania

93 points by aburan28 11y ago

rdtsc 11y ago
TL;DR: It probably ended up in Israel at the Dimona reactor. That was bought for "peaceful purposes" in the 1950s from France.
anovikov 11y ago
Anyway, natural uranium is no way a hard-to-get asset for a state-level actor. It is found nearly everywhere - although most of the ores are too low concentration for profitable production - but given the market price of uranium is under $100 a pound it is no problem to spend an order of magnitude more to get a few tons for a reactor to produce bomb plutonium.
- aburan28 11y ago
  This was weapons grade uranium, U235. Not to mention that plutonium was also found at this site http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf
graycat 11y ago
Right. Yet again mention that old fact of history. And IIRC, it wasn't just natural uranium that was "missing". And what happened to that material? Three guesses, and the first two don't count. If you have to ask, you won't really understand it! Maybe this time mention that history to update ISIS. No doubt Assad and the Iranians know, and so did Saddam.
- graycat 11y ago
  Some people are slow on the uptake and failing to understand the history and playing politics with me. Look, I'm not objecting to the supply chain and materials requirements planning. Fine with me. And my suggestion, I thought clear enough, was that the purpose of the article was likely just to remind some people with desires for big time fireworks about the old accounting lapses. I'm not the only one: Notice the crucial, relevant line in The Sum of All Fears -- this accounting has been known for a long time. In particular some of the recent threats are against not just US interests but against the US itself, indeed, where I live. So, sure I like the purpose of the article.
  - ars 11y ago
    You are being downmodded not for your opinion but for using a ton of words to say nothing whatsoever.
    - selimthegrim 11y ago
      in a verbose and roundabout way, he is stating that <insert Arab terrorists here> could pilfer this and use it for a non-state actor bomb
      - graycat 11y ago
        No. Not even close. Way, way off. Gads, no one here knows the story. Hint: What country in the Mideast is widely believed to have some nuke bombs and has had for many years? Hint: There's only one. Hint: Considering how long, say, Iran has been working on concentrating uranium, just how the heck did the first country in the Mideast get the critical materials? Hint: As in the movie The Sum of All Fears -- I thought that enough people has seen that movie to get it. Solution: Some years ago, some accounting errors in or near Pennsylvania -- that's the usual story. Understand now, or is this still too vague? Again, my guess at the purpose of the OP now is to point out again to other countries and any terrorists that they better not mess with the Mideast country that has long had nuke bombs. Now, let's be totally clear: At no point did I say that long ago Israel got some chunks of nuke bomb material from some accounting errors from some place in Pennsylvania and that those errors were the source of Israel having nuke bombs. I did not say that! But it has been said often enough before by others. Too many words to understand this time?
        maxerickson 11y ago
        The many words don't make the post any clearer. I wonder what situation you think might come up where this oblique dancing around is better than just saying directly that the material could have ended up in Israel and that they would use it to make nuclear weapons. (To be clear, I understood your original post and voted it up from gray prior to you posting the second comment)
Animats 11y ago
It's reasonably well known that Israel got enriched uranium from somebody (Israel never built a gaseous diffusion plant; those are huge, consume vast amounts of power, and can't be hidden), but whether it was the US, France, or South Africa is still an open question.[1] [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801326.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04...
aburan28 11y ago
Here is what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has to say about the NUMEC affair: "Time for real transparency. It's fair to ask, in view of the other losses in the US nuclear weapons complex, why the CIA and others singled out NUMEC for grave suspicion as the source for Israeli bomb-grade uranium. In brief, the reasons are these: NUMEC's unexplained losses were a significantly larger proportion of its throughput of highly enriched uranium than was the case for other firms that dealt with nuclear materials. Sloppy accounting and lax security made the plant easy to rob without detection. NUMEC had commercial relationships with Israel’s defense and nuclear establishments and regularly made sizeable nuclear shipments to Israel, which at that time were not checked by the AEC. NUMEC’s owners and executives had extremely close ties to Israel, including to high Israeli intelligence and nuclear officials. Israel had strong motives to obtain the highly enriched uranium before it was producing enough plutonium for weapons. High-level Israeli intelligence operatives visited the NUMEC plant. Israeli intelligence organizations were used to running logistically complicated, risky operations to support nuclear weapons development, and it would have been very much out of character for them to pass up an opportunity like this. On top of all this, records show the CIA believed its 1968 environmental sample taken in Israel evidenced an enrichment level unique to Portsmouth." http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-united-states7056 http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-u...
Hydraulix989 11y ago
I grew up a short drive away from Apollo. I can see a family member's house in the "cover photo." Really glad I got out of there.

93 points by aburan28 11y ago

rdtsc 11y ago

TL;DR: It probably ended up in Israel at the Dimona reactor. That was bought for "peaceful purposes" in the 1950s from France.

anovikov 11y ago

Anyway, natural uranium is no way a hard-to-get asset for a state-level actor. It is found nearly everywhere - although most of the ores are too low concentration for profitable production - but given the market price of uranium is under $100 a pound it is no problem to spend an order of magnitude more to get a few tons for a reactor to produce bomb plutonium.

aburan28 11y ago
This was weapons grade uranium, U235. Not to mention that plutonium was also found at this site http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Revisiting_the_NUMEC.pdf

graycat 11y ago

Right. Yet again mention that old fact of history. And IIRC, it wasn't just natural uranium that was "missing". And what happened to that material? Three guesses, and the first two don't count. If you have to ask, you won't really understand it! Maybe this time mention that history to update ISIS. No doubt Assad and the Iranians know, and so did Saddam.

graycat 11y ago
Some people are slow on the uptake and failing to understand the history and playing politics with me. Look, I'm not objecting to the supply chain and materials requirements planning. Fine with me. And my suggestion, I thought clear enough, was that the purpose of the article was likely just to remind some people with desires for big time fireworks about the old accounting lapses. I'm not the only one: Notice the crucial, relevant line in The Sum of All Fears -- this accounting has been known for a long time. In particular some of the recent threats are against not just US interests but against the US itself, indeed, where I live. So, sure I like the purpose of the article.
- ars 11y ago
  You are being downmodded not for your opinion but for using a ton of words to say nothing whatsoever.
  - selimthegrim 11y ago
    in a verbose and roundabout way, he is stating that <insert Arab terrorists here> could pilfer this and use it for a non-state actor bomb
    - graycat 11y ago
      No. Not even close. Way, way off. Gads, no one here knows the story. Hint: What country in the Mideast is widely believed to have some nuke bombs and has had for many years? Hint: There's only one. Hint: Considering how long, say, Iran has been working on concentrating uranium, just how the heck did the first country in the Mideast get the critical materials? Hint: As in the movie The Sum of All Fears -- I thought that enough people has seen that movie to get it. Solution: Some years ago, some accounting errors in or near Pennsylvania -- that's the usual story. Understand now, or is this still too vague? Again, my guess at the purpose of the OP now is to point out again to other countries and any terrorists that they better not mess with the Mideast country that has long had nuke bombs. Now, let's be totally clear: At no point did I say that long ago Israel got some chunks of nuke bomb material from some accounting errors from some place in Pennsylvania and that those errors were the source of Israel having nuke bombs. I did not say that! But it has been said often enough before by others. Too many words to understand this time?
      - maxerickson 11y ago
        The many words don't make the post any clearer. I wonder what situation you think might come up where this oblique dancing around is better than just saying directly that the material could have ended up in Israel and that they would use it to make nuclear weapons. (To be clear, I understood your original post and voted it up from gray prior to you posting the second comment)

Animats 11y ago

It's reasonably well known that Israel got enriched uranium from somebody (Israel never built a gaseous diffusion plant; those are huge, consume vast amounts of power, and can't be hidden), but whether it was the US, France, or South Africa is still an open question.[1] [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801326.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04...

aburan28 11y ago

Here is what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has to say about the NUMEC affair: "Time for real transparency. It's fair to ask, in view of the other losses in the US nuclear weapons complex, why the CIA and others singled out NUMEC for grave suspicion as the source for Israeli bomb-grade uranium. In brief, the reasons are these: NUMEC's unexplained losses were a significantly larger proportion of its throughput of highly enriched uranium than was the case for other firms that dealt with nuclear materials. Sloppy accounting and lax security made the plant easy to rob without detection. NUMEC had commercial relationships with Israel’s defense and nuclear establishments and regularly made sizeable nuclear shipments to Israel, which at that time were not checked by the AEC. NUMEC’s owners and executives had extremely close ties to Israel, including to high Israeli intelligence and nuclear officials. Israel had strong motives to obtain the highly enriched uranium before it was producing enough plutonium for weapons. High-level Israeli intelligence operatives visited the NUMEC plant. Israeli intelligence organizations were used to running logistically complicated, risky operations to support nuclear weapons development, and it would have been very much out of character for them to pass up an opportunity like this. On top of all this, records show the CIA believed its 1968 environmental sample taken in Israel evidenced an enrichment level unique to Portsmouth." http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-united-states7056 http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-u...

Hydraulix989 11y ago

I grew up a short drive away from Apollo. I can see a family member's house in the "cover photo." Really glad I got out of there.