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> A dirty bomb remains viable with partially enriched materials. A dirty bomb is basically Hollywood nonsense, and wouldn't use uranium to begin with because i
by AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> A dirty bomb remains viable with partially enriched materials.
A dirty bomb is basically Hollywood nonsense, and wouldn't use uranium to begin with because it isn't very radioactive.
The premise is that you put radioactive materials into a conventional explosive to spread it around. But spreading a kilogram of something over a small area is boring because you can fully vaporize a small area using conventional explosives, spreading a kilogram of something over a large area is useless because you'd be diluting it so much it wouldn't matter, and spreading several tons of something over a large area is back to "you could do more damage by just using several tons of far cheaper conventional explosives".
- dralley 1y agoAlso anything that is dangerous enough to actually be scary in dirty bomb form, like Cobalt-60, would be impossible to handle without providing a lethal dose of radiation to anyone working with he material within minutes if not seconds (presumably a reasonablely large & dangerous amount of this material is involved). At least, not without incredibly expensive equipment. And by the time you factor in those prerequisites it's just not worth it.
- bandrami 1y agoThe toxicity of the Uranium would be a bigger problem than the radioactivity
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoAnd has the same issue with dilution, and is even more boring because there are much cheaper things with more chemical toxicity than uranium too, like lead.
- adastra22 1y agoIt isn’t any more toxic than lead, which this bomb probably was filled with.