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“The enriched uranium fuel they use must be kept secure. “ really lacking context on this sentence, enriched nuclear waste is stored because of non proliferatio
by throwaway69123 3y ago
“The enriched uranium fuel they use must be kept secure. “ really lacking context on this sentence, enriched nuclear waste is stored because of non proliferation treaties not because of limitations of the science or technology
- theonlybutlet 3y agoNon-proliferation and more importantly nefarious use.
- hutzlibu 3y agoLike dirty bombs, that anyone can make easily, who can make a ordinary bomb.
- jabl 3y agoEnriched uranium would not make a particularly impressive dirty bomb. Spent nuclear fuel, or some specific very radioactive isotopes, maybe.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoEven more sinister would be to just hide radioactive material some place. No bomb, no one knows whats wrong because no one casually sweeps a geiger counter, and this probably would probably irradiate people nearby for years before its found.
- hutzlibu 3y agoYeah, but the point of terror is to make terror, that people are afraid. Not to actually damage much. A dirty bomb would be a perfect terror weapon as people are afraid of radiation and mostly would not trust government when they declare it is safe.
- jjk166 3y agoThe US actually does have a radiation detector network that covers most major cities. If you have enough radioactive material to pose a threat to people's health from brief exposure over a non-trivial area, it would be detected. You'd probably also wind up on a lot of intelligence agencies' radars trying to acquire that much radioactive material and the equipment for handling it.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoHow many smoke detectors would you have to stockpile before getting a knock on your door?
- XorNot 3y agoDirty bombs are an overblown threat, compared to a regular bomb parked near a stadium security line or what you can make with off the shelf chemicals.
- simiones 3y agoThe fallout from a dirty bomb would be relatively easily cleaned up with showers and a few hoses on streets and buildings. The people close to the blast would also inhale some radioactive dust which will be a much bigger problem, but most of them will probably just die because of the conventional explosion itself. The radioactive dust is definitely far less problematic than shrapnel from a fragmentation bomb. Overall dirty bombs are really not a problem bigger than any other kind of bomb.
- rsaxvc 3y agoIn addition to proliferation and other tasks: do not turn into radioactive meteor upon reentry breakup.