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Nuclear material worth $72M seized in a car in Turkey
- th0ma5 7y agoI remember a TedX talk where a gentleman said a dirty bomb is probably about the best even a small rogue nation state could hope to pull off as nuclear weapons are such a pain to deal with you really have to have the resources of a very large country to even start: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AeodWP0B-pw https://youtube.com/watch?v=AeodWP0B-pw
- mikeash 7y agoWas this before or after North Korea, with an economy around the size of Botswana or Afghanistan, assembled a nuclear arsenal?
- th0ma5 7y agoWhat arsenal? I was thinking they blew up all the devices that were ever made, never demonstrated a portable device, and also destroyed all their facilities in the course of the doing this.
- jhayward 7y agoUS and S. Korean officials estimate that North Korea has about 60 nuclear weapons, and can manufacture about 6 per year at present.
- jacobush 7y agoUS officials also estimated there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
- BalinKing 7y agoIt was only declassified in 2015, but WMDs were discovered in Iraq circa 2005 by Operations Avarice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#2005:_Operation_Avarice https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_des.... There are counterarguments against the validity of Operation Avarice’s discoveries in justifying the Iraq War, although I admittedly don’t know much about the topic.
- th0ma5 7y agoI feel like people selling left over devices from the Iran-Iraq war was reported in the media well before 2015.
- ggm 7y agoTBF there had been a programme. It was defunct, and the evidence of continuance was weak, and it was a totally manufactured crisis, but they had been on the hunt. In no way does this justify the war, and subsequent events.
- ndarwincorn 7y ago> evidence of continuance was weak That's a funny way of saying that we had interviews from the general that ordered the destruction of the program that all WMD had been destroyed after the Iran-Iraq war.[1] I'd add that counter-evidence of continuance was strong if you're going to include that at all. [1] http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/iraq_defector/kamel_transcript/index.html http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/iraq_defector/kamel_transcript...
- gpm 7y agoI'm not sure why you would consider a interview with an Iraqi General strong evidence. Either way while I agree that the US claims were fabricated, he was also demonstrably incorrect in claiming that there were none https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middlee...
- sjg007 7y agoExcept North Korea blew up their mountain base housing them.
- jhayward 7y agoNo, it didn't. They don't store their nukes in the test tunnels.
- SEJeff 7y ago*with the help of Pakistan
- mises 7y agoIn fairness to him, North Korea's nukes are not that much better than dirty bombs and aren't super high-yield. N. Korea also has total control of the economy because it is communist, so can starve her citizens to fund bomb construction. That said, your point is good. Does any one have a real idea to denuclearize rogue nations (N. Korea, Iran, Pakistan, etc.)? All I've seen is both the Trump and Obama administrations saying very nicely "please, please denuclearize" and imposing sanctions. Problem being, bad nations don't care about their citizens. Could some one please propose a method to force denuclearization by an unwilling nation? Or at least prevent them getting more?
- Symmetry 7y agoIn 2006 North Korea had a nuke little better than a dirty bomb. These days, in 2019, they've got a 250 kt thermonuclear bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas...
- th0ma5 7y agoArguably had a 250kt device, judging by seismic data, although they may have killed a lot of people involved by detonating it? I'm just going by what is in the linked articles from Wikipedia, although the Wikipedia articles themselves don't mention it as it hasn't been independently announced as such by any non media organization.
- asadlionpk 7y agoHow is Pakistan a rogue nation?
- leetcrew 7y agothere is an official definition of "rogue state" but it's an inherently political term, hard to have an unbiased discussion over who is and is not a rogue state. pakistan does present a bit of a problem for the rest of the world. they have over a hundred nukes and a very tense relationship with their neighbor, india. it's somewhat unstable and ISI has had some questionable (to say the least) dealings with terrorist groups. definitely not a combination that makes other countries very comfortable.
- dontbenebby 7y agoIt's not the size of your economy, it's how you use it. (North Korea spends ~22% of their GDP on their military.)
- OedipusRex 7y agoHow is something like Californium priced if it's bought on a national scale?
- pcurve 7y agoIt says you need nuclear reactor and particle accelerator. I guess entry to barrier is sort of high.
- mises 7y agoI can only assume the same way most rare items are priced - whatever the buyer and seller negotiate. The other option might be auction, but this doesn't exactly work for nuclear materials.
- cryptonector 7y agoIf the seller produced it, then they would presumably charge a hefty premium over the cost of production. If it "fell off the back of a truck", the seller would probably sell it for a huge discount to the real value because, after all, there won't be that very many buyers, and what buyers the seller can find might not be able to muster the real value (or at least they'll try hard to pay much less).
- pcurve 7y agoThat is some super expensive stuff by gram. Anyone know how they detect this? Some movie material stuff.
- atemerev 7y agoNeutron detectors. They are installed in many public places, customs, truck scanning areas, airports etc. -- specifically to prevent nuclear materials smuggling. This one was easy -- californium is the among the most intensive neutron sources, and 18g is a _huge_ amount of it. Any neutron detector worthy of its name should have raised the alarm.
- pretendscholar 7y agoCan you use something to evade detection? Like some sort of scattering device?
- vermilingua 7y agoSuspend it in water, I would guess. How much water, is the important question.
- foxyv 7y agoRight, so smuggle my Californium inside a rare shark swimming in a tank of water. That would make for an interesting news story!
- atemerev 7y agoI do not understand how people involved are still alive. Californium-252 is one of the most efficient neutron sources available; it is really hard to protect against neutron radiation, and it will activate all materials nearby. Keeping 18g of californium "in the car" is a certain death sentence (and will require hazmat cleanup of epic proportions). Here's how a container suitable for safe transportation of _one_ gram of californium looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium#/media/File:CfShield.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium#/media/File:CfShie...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoThat amount seems suspicious to me too, as does the fact that it was being transported in just a bag. I wonder if it will turn out like the previous large bust that is mentioned in the article. >In March 2018, police in Ankara seized a whopping 1.4 kilograms (3.1 pounds) of a substance, believed to be Californium, in a car following a tipoff. That time, however, the substance turned out to be organic with no nuclear or radioactive properties.
- dmurray 7y agoThat's for 1 gram of Cf-252. Cf-251 is about 400 times more stable according to that Wikipedia page. It's still out of the question that anyone is driving round with 18 grams of any isotope of it, much less 1.4 kg. The documented world production is less than 0.5g per year.
- ggm 7y agoThats safe transportation for avoidance of accidents. If I was smuggling this stuff, I'd use a mule, and I'd pick one who had no consciousness of how dangerous the materials were, and I'd avoid contact with them directly. I probably wouldn't care about the crash risk: if the cleanup crew is decontaminating a border crossing down south, I can get through up north with the other 1g. Also, if the mule dies more than 72hrs later, I don't have to bother disposing of the mule. If you publish the airport thriller, I declare my interest (c)
- ceejayoz 7y ago
- rtkwe 7y agoI keep hearing it said it's used in reactors and weapons but no one really has any details about the weapon and the best I can find is you need about 5 kg theoretically as the critical mass using it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- atemerev 7y agoIt is a startup neutron source for nuclear reactors. It won't work as a neutron initiator in nuclear weapons (since you can't regulate its neutron flux), but it has the immense research value for criticality experiments if you are running your own nuclear program. P.S. you can't build a nuclear weapon out of californium, at all. To achieve the nuclear explosion, you need to assemble the supercritical configuration (minimum necessary k_eff about 1.53 for plutonium) without any stray neutrons leading to premature initiation, then, at the precise moment, inject neutrons in the system (even a single neutron is enough) to start the runaway chain reaction. Californium excels at spontaneous fission; there are so many neutrons in the system at any time, that premature initiation is guaranteed.
- amluto 7y agoPremature ignition is not a problem for some boosted design, though, AIUI. I imagine a big problem with trying to build a bomb is that the neutron emission will make assembling and transporting the bomb extremely difficult.
- atemerev 7y agoNot that I am aware of. The very difficulty of building a nuclear explosive device is about premature initiation. Even if there were designs which could make use of constant high-intensity compact neutron source (perhaps in the fusion stage?), just putting it inside the weapon would be quite dangerous. Still, compact neutron sources have their uses.
- Someone1234 7y agoThis paragraph later in the article is odd: > In March 2018, police in Ankara seized a whopping 1.4 kilograms (3.1 pounds) of a substance, believed to be Californium, in a car following a tipoff. That time, however, the substance turned out to be organic with no nuclear or radioactive properties. That's a strange way of saying they seized "a whopping 1.4 kilograms" of nothing. Kind of makes you question the merits of this story/seizure. Least of all since them seizing the wrong thing a second time seems far more likely than someone driving around with $72M worth of a rare substance which can only be made in two places on earth (neither of which are Turkey).
- atemerev 7y agoNuclear smuggling is relatively commonplace. I can recommend the book "Nuclear Forensic Analysis" by Ian D. Hutcheon, Kenton J. Moody, and Patrick M. Grant for those who are interested in the details. Minor quantities of genuine nuclear materials (tens of grams of plutonium) are seized at borders about once per year. Cases dealing with major (kilogram) quantities seem to be classified, but I have little doubt they exist.
- slang800 7y ago> I have little doubt they exist. One well known incident involved 91-272 kg of enriched Uranium going missing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair
- noobermin 7y agoUranium (even enriched) seems like on a different level than Californium.
- solveit 7y agoI'm sure they exist, but there are no cases involving kilograms of Californium since there exist maybe ten grams of the stuff in the entire world.
- beloch 7y agoIt's interesting that this happened in Bolu, which is nowhere near an international border. I'd be curious to know what tipped the police off that they should start tearing up carpet in this car. Were the smugglers stopped for some other offence and things seemed fishy enough to warrant a search of their vehicle?
- alfiedotwtf 7y agoWith stories like these, there's usually SIGINT involved, and a traffic violation is the pretext for the "random pullover".
- anonu 7y agoWhen I read such stories, I wonder what the real story is. It's never the one that appears in the news.
- novaleaf 7y agolook at the domain name.
- anonu 7y agoGood point. I noticed that right after I made the comment. Is it a stretch to believe that Israeli and Turkish security services are in contact with each other ... Despite headlined animosity between the 2 countries?
- novaleaf 7y agoA great deal of Israel's history and culture revolve around existential risks. I think this newspaper is just catering to it's audience. See other HN submissions for it: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=israelhayom.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=israelhayom.com
- trhway 7y agohow to handle 18g of highly active neutron source https://twitter.com/i/status/1147464052869718018 https://twitter.com/i/status/1147464052869718018
- stevespang 7y agoIf I did the math correctly, 18.1 grams of Californium emits 41,630,000 neutrons per second, so it's amazing the suspects are not dead.
- Merrill 7y agoAccording to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium#Production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium#Production "Only two sites produce californium-252: the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States, and the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Russia. As of 2003, the two sites produce 0.25 grams and 0.025 grams of californium-252 per year, respectively." So it seems that the Turks have seized about 66 years of production.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sandworm101 7y ago>> Turks have seized about 66 years of production. Or we have lost some information in the reporting. Possibly this is 18 grams of something that has tested positive for californium. That is different than 18 grams of pure californium. I'm not sure what testing they did, but i doubt they verified every atom. There is likely a large amount of, for lack of the correct word, filler. When dealing with very precious substances it is not unusual to combine them with other easily removed and inert material to facilitate handling. When dealing with nuclear material, this reduction in the density of the radioactive stuff is a significant safety advantage. This could be 1% or less californium and 99+% filler ... still a significant find but not evidence of a clandestine production line.
- mrtksn 7y agoProbably because it's fake news. This format pops up every once in a while, "The police seized x amount of y nuclear material worth z million dollars". It's usually Californium or phosphorus... This is from the last year and even has photos: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/ankarada-nukleer-madde-operasyonu-kaliforniyum-maddesi-ele-gecirildi-40777178 http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/ankarada-nukleer-madde-ope... Does this look like a Californium to you?
- novaleaf 7y agoseems like this article should be flagged....
- rdtsc 7y agoSomething is off here. Here is how you transport Californium-252 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium#/media/File:CfShield.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californium#/media/File:CfShie... A giant flask filled with polyethylene or water (lead won't work). That's for 1 gram only! 18 grams is just a ridiculous amount. I suspect it is not Californium-252 but another isotope (251?) or maybe not Californium at all. But yeah it is the most expensive commercially produced substance currently. And smuggling it would make sense from that point of view. However being bombarded by deadly neutrons while handling it, probably ensures you won't be doing it for long.
- mrtksn 7y agoIt's fake news. Here is the same "news" from the last year with pictures of the siezed Californium: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/ankarada-nukleer-madde-operasyonu-kaliforniyum-maddesi-ele-gecirildi-40777178 http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/ankarada-nukleer-madde-ope... This "news" pops up every once in awhile, it can be Californium but it can be some exotic phosphorus too. I guess it depends on the creative mood of the journalist. I flagged this.