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> I remember reading some persuasive arguments that Russia probably only has a small amount of Soviet era nukes left for the same reason. They are incorrect. R

> I remember reading some persuasive arguments that Russia probably only has a small amount of Soviet era nukes left for the same reason. They are incorrect. Russia has many thousands of nukes. If there's a possibility of defects, it's for the hydrogen part, but the plutonium part will work absolutely fine. One can envision that Russia's megaton bombs don't work anymore, but Russia still has thousands of Hiroshima-sized well functioning bombs, and most people in this world don't care if they die form a 20 kT bomb or from a 2 MT bomb.

leptons 3y ago
That's fine but the delivery system is older than old, and there's very little chance most of their "well functioning" bombs would even make it off the ground.
bbatha 3y ago
> plutonium part will work absolutely fine. Plutonium pits need to be constantly rebuilt. Plutonium is one of the most corrosive materials on earth and phase changes at the drop of hat, it has 7 stable phases and only the one the bomb was designed for will do the job.
- credit_guy 3y ago
  That's not quite true. Plutonium is definitely not one of the most corrosive materials. It does have some peculiarities [1]. But they are not that relevant for plutonium pits, and the 7 stable phases are not that relevant either. Plutonium pits are made of an alloy of plutonium and gallium, which makes plutonium take the delta phase, and it makes it about 20 times more stable than unalloyed plutonium. Is it perfectly stable in this form? No, because plutonium decays, so after decades things can happen. But after how many decades? People don't know for sure, but it's many decades. The US decided to start rebuilding 30 pits per year from 2026 on and 80 from 2030. At more than 5000 nukes in the inventory, each pit would be rebuilt after more than six decades. Keep in mind that right now we are not doing that at all, and haven't been doing it for about 3 decades. Bottom line, Russia's plutonium weapons are fine (unfortunately). [1] https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818031.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818031.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_allo... [3] https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-science/2021-winter/pit-production-explained/ https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-sci...

leptons 3y ago

That's fine but the delivery system is older than old, and there's very little chance most of their "well functioning" bombs would even make it off the ground.

bbatha 3y ago

> plutonium part will work absolutely fine. Plutonium pits need to be constantly rebuilt. Plutonium is one of the most corrosive materials on earth and phase changes at the drop of hat, it has 7 stable phases and only the one the bomb was designed for will do the job.

credit_guy 3y ago
That's not quite true. Plutonium is definitely not one of the most corrosive materials. It does have some peculiarities [1]. But they are not that relevant for plutonium pits, and the 7 stable phases are not that relevant either. Plutonium pits are made of an alloy of plutonium and gallium, which makes plutonium take the delta phase, and it makes it about 20 times more stable than unalloyed plutonium. Is it perfectly stable in this form? No, because plutonium decays, so after decades things can happen. But after how many decades? People don't know for sure, but it's many decades. The US decided to start rebuilding 30 pits per year from 2026 on and 80 from 2030. At more than 5000 nukes in the inventory, each pit would be rebuilt after more than six decades. Keep in mind that right now we are not doing that at all, and haven't been doing it for about 3 decades. Bottom line, Russia's plutonium weapons are fine (unfortunately). [1] https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818031.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818031.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_allo... [3] https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-science/2021-winter/pit-production-explained/ https://discover.lanl.gov/publications/national-security-sci...