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Erm, "I think the terrorist issue is an overblown boogeyman" is cold comfort. ISIS already comtemplated building dirty bombs in Mossul. And so far most of the
by bayesian_horse 4y ago
Erm, "I think the terrorist issue is an overblown boogeyman" is cold comfort. ISIS already comtemplated building dirty bombs in Mossul.
And so far most of the nuclear waste has been stored right were it was used. SMRs are supposed to be everywhere. So nuclear waste will be everywhere, ready to get stolen, or shot at or blown up.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoTerrorists have contemplated everything. Pulling it off is different.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoThey didn't know that they had Cobalt-60 on the college campus, which would have made a superb dirty bomb. They did get their hands on some Uranium, though. So it is a relatively close call. To close to hand-wave away the possibility of terrorists or failed states abusing nuclear material.
- robonerd 4y agoBy the numbers, any kind of terrorism is an overblown boogeyman. Nuclear terrorism particularly so, and doubly overblown is nuclear terrorism that isn't state sponsored.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoYou'd hope so. But in the case of ISIS you could argue that it was a near-state actor. And we just can't predict the trajectory of state actors. Pakistan is troublesome. So is Iran, even with its "civilian" nuclear program. North-Korea. Those are just examples from the present. There are lots of other countries that would need nuclear power but whom I wouldn't count on surviving the next few decades. And many are too corrupt to regulate a nuclear industry well enough. Just hand-waving away future risks like that does sound intellectually dishonest and careless to me.