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A serious question: has there been any evidence of weapons related nuclear "incidents" in North Korea? I know they get external help with their programs, but i
by salgernon 9y ago
A serious question: has there been any evidence of weapons related nuclear "incidents" in North Korea? I know they get external help with their programs, but it seems ... odd ... that there hasn't been a detectable "oops" moment involving their ongoing weapons development.
- CydeWeys 9y agoWhat do you mean by an "oops" moment? Some small criticality event, like the US's demon core, would not be detectable from far away. They aren't pursuing nuclear power either, which would be the most likely path towards meltdowns.
- ethbro 9y agoExactly. "Oops" when you're testing nuclear weapons would simply be a different yield than expected. I imagine the USAF radioisotope analysts (if that's still done these days, expect it might be impossible with underground testing) could possibly detect less-than-complete fusion. But you've got to screw up pretty badly to have a static nuclear weapon test misfire.
- greglindahl 9y agoReprocessing plutonium has a risk of criticality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident