4 ms·
All of those examples involve reactors, single cores, or fluid containers.
by SlickNixon 4y ago
All of those examples involve reactors, single cores, or fluid containers.
- kennend3 4y agoyes.. it seems a few people misunderstood the statement as "plutonium cant go critical" vs the correct interpretation "storing pits close to one another".
- mikeyouse 4y agoThose are only the confirmed criticality incidents -- there have been "near misses" by just plain idiocy in storing plutonium, including a US nightmare where they decided to gather a bunch of rods together to take a picture of them all in frame. https://www.science.org/content/article/near-disaster-federal-nuclear-weapons-laboratory-takes-hidden-toll-america-s-arsenal https://www.science.org/content/article/near-disaster-federa...
- SlickNixon 4y agoI think the main source of confusion is here is that the original author said "weapons", which about half of commentators have taken to mean weapons/warheads and half have taken to mean nuclear material of any variety.
- mikeyouse 4y agoYeah that's a fair point -- it's unlikely for pits to ever achieve accidental criticality given their design and setting. Much less so for plutonium in general which you'd likely have to deal with anywhere you have a bunch of warheads hanging out.