9 ms·

A Secret Race for Abandoned Nuclear Material

82 points by dctoedt 13y ago

dm2 13y ago
Why wouldn't they want to use it for fuel in nuclear reactors?
- mashmac2 13y ago
  My understanding is that weapons-grade plutonium is not easily usable in a conventional reactor; the vast majority of reactors in operation today run on uranium, which is enriched to a much lower percentage than weapons-grade fissile material. TL;DR different elements, different concentrations of isotopes.
  - jackpirate 13y ago
    A standard commercial reactor is ~5% enriched. That means that 5% of the Uranium is U235, and the rest U238. U238 absorbs neutrons, however, eventually becoming plutonium. This plutonium is where a majority of the energy comes from. It's just too damn hard to separate it out into something that would be weapons grade, unless the reactor was specifically built that way from the start.
  - dm2 13y ago
    They already have the facilities to recycle plutonium for MOX fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Fast_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Fast_reactors http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Fuel-Recycling/Mixed-Oxide-Fuel-MOX http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Fuel-Re... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/mox-fuel_b_2707864.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/mox-fuel_b_27078... http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/basicmoxinfo.htm http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/basicmoxinfo.htm
  - fitumpich 13y ago
    well in a light water reactor some of thr fuel can be Pu, but you really can't go beyond 30%. With that said, if you build a reactor that doesn't need to moderate the neutrons and slow them down you could use nothing but plutonium as a fuel. But why bother, LEU is just fine and you cant make a bomb with it. Whereas plutonium is a proliferation hazard and much more expensive.
- jacquesm 13y ago
  That would be like throwing gasoline into a natural gas turbine. The one is simply not suitable for consumption by the other.
- caf 13y ago
  Apart from the other excellent answers, there just isn't that much fissile material there. The amount required to fuel a bomb is significantly less than the amount required to fuel a power reactor - it simply wouldn't be economical to recover the fissile material, purify and downblend it. Note that there is a separate program that takes excess weapons HEU from Russian stockpiles and downblends it for sale as nuclear fuel. This is the "Megatons to Megawatts" program, and it has downblended almost 500 tons of HEU since 1995.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  It is. There's been a big program to do just that called "Megatons to Megawatts": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
- fitumpich 13y ago
  They do. Decommissioned HEU is downblended to LEU levels for use in power reactors. You dont need that level of enrichment for a power reactor. About 5% enrichment is all commericals reactors use. The program has been in place since the 1990s and is running to this day. It's called Megatons to Megawatts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  In this particular case, the limiting issue was probably international relations. Securing it on-site solves the problem of keeping it away from terrorists, without raising all sorts of questions about access, transport, secrecy, payments, etc. between three nations (U.S., Russia, Kazakhstan).
Amadou 13y ago
We should all take the bit about being able to construct a “relatively sophisticated nuclear device,” with a grain of salt. An actual bomb is beyond the capability of anybody but a nation-state. Al-qaeda, et al don't have a chance of anything more than a dirty bomb. While dirty bombs suck too, they are limited to contamination of a couple of city blocks - not actual kinetic destruction of those blocks and the contaminated have a high survivability level given the kind of treatment immediately available in a city. Also, in this day and age of the NSA and supporters using weasel words, I have to wonder if (a) this info was declassified to support justifications for the NSA and (b) if the line about a "nuclear device" is more weasel wording to sound scary without literally claiming they could build a bomb.
- phkamp 13y ago
  This is old cold-war spin, and it has been refuted so many times, yet it still surfaces. Read "The curve of binding energy", and you will learn from Ted Taylor, one of the worlds best nuclear warhead designers, that you can make the simplest atomic bomb by dropping one piece of fissile material on another, provided they are big enough to become a critical mass. It won't be tens of megatons, but it will be a perfect terror weapon, spreading panic, making a large-ish area uninhabitable and costing a fortune and many years to clean up. If the terrorists are smart enough bring a couple of sacks of salt, it makes the mess much worse. There are damn good reasons to go out of the way to prevent access to the funny end of the periodic table.
  - srean 13y ago
    More qualified people will correct me, but I think there is more to it than dropping a piece of fissile material over another. I think the trick is to keep the pieces together long enough before the forces of explosion rips them apart. As far as I know there have been several examples of accidents were scientists did actually drop a fissile blob over another, and the material did go critical, but thankfully the scientist(s) involved were fast enough to separate the pieces so that no catastrophes ensued. They themselves died as a result of exposure to radiation. As I said, more qualified people will be able to fill in the details and citations.
hristov 13y ago
I feel bad for the Chinese. They are getting irradiated metal without knowing it. There is going to be a lot of pain sickness and suffering caused by this scavenging even thought it will probably never be traced back to Kazakhstan.
- jaxb 13y ago
  Someone down the line, yeah, but probably not the scrap dealers.
- aunty_helen 13y ago
  Cheap copper for your iphone.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  Irradiated just means that it has been exposed to radiation. Doesn't necessarily mean the copper is itself particularly radioactive. Depends on the specific circumstances.
  - andreasvc 13y ago
    If it doesn't make the copper radioactive, then of what significance is it that the copper has been irradiated? I understand that irradiation of food kills bacteria, but with a metal I don't see why it matters.
    - Bootvis 13y ago
      Irradiation causes the copper itself to become radioactive. The copper atoms get hit by the radiation which causes some of them to change in radioactive isotopes.
      - tanzam75 13y ago
        As I said, it depends on the particular circumstances. For example, suppose it captures a neutron. Copper has two natural isotopes, copper-63 and copper-65. Copper-64 has a half-life of hours, and decays into Nickel-64 or Zinc-64, both of which are stable and occur in nature. Copper-66 has a half-life of minutes, and decays into Zinc-66, which is stable and occurs in nature. But maybe it didn't capture a neutron. And there might be impurities in the copper that are dangerous when irradiated. Or maybe it was physically contaminated with dangerous isotopes of another element. Just saying that it was "irradiated" doesn't give us enough information to tell what actually happened.
aunty_helen 13y ago
Voz island in the Aral Sea is another example of this happening but on the chemical weapons side of things. Nick Middleton travelled there in 'Going to More Extremes' (which is well worth the watch). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAFGx9nU3q4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAFGx9nU3q4
tlrobinson 13y ago
This reads exactly like the beginning of an action thriller movie.
msantos 13y ago
The dangers of dirty bombs should not be ignored. They surely aren't as destructive as a explosion but nevertheless their possible effects financially and morally are potentially devastating. Just look at the historical results of the Sarin gas attack in Tokyo (sort of a dirty bomb) and the unintentional spread of radioactive material in Goiania/Brazil caused by metal scavengers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6181011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6181011)

82 points by dctoedt 13y ago

dm2 13y ago

Why wouldn't they want to use it for fuel in nuclear reactors?

mashmac2 13y ago
My understanding is that weapons-grade plutonium is not easily usable in a conventional reactor; the vast majority of reactors in operation today run on uranium, which is enriched to a much lower percentage than weapons-grade fissile material. TL;DR different elements, different concentrations of isotopes.
- jackpirate 13y ago
  A standard commercial reactor is ~5% enriched. That means that 5% of the Uranium is U235, and the rest U238. U238 absorbs neutrons, however, eventually becoming plutonium. This plutonium is where a majority of the energy comes from. It's just too damn hard to separate it out into something that would be weapons grade, unless the reactor was specifically built that way from the start.
- dm2 13y ago
  They already have the facilities to recycle plutonium for MOX fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Fast_reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Fast_reactors http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Fuel-Recycling/Mixed-Oxide-Fuel-MOX http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Fuel-Re... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/mox-fuel_b_2707864.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/renee-parsons/mox-fuel_b_27078... http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/basicmoxinfo.htm http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/basicmoxinfo.htm
- fitumpich 13y ago
  well in a light water reactor some of thr fuel can be Pu, but you really can't go beyond 30%. With that said, if you build a reactor that doesn't need to moderate the neutrons and slow them down you could use nothing but plutonium as a fuel. But why bother, LEU is just fine and you cant make a bomb with it. Whereas plutonium is a proliferation hazard and much more expensive.
jacquesm 13y ago
That would be like throwing gasoline into a natural gas turbine. The one is simply not suitable for consumption by the other.
caf 13y ago
Apart from the other excellent answers, there just isn't that much fissile material there. The amount required to fuel a bomb is significantly less than the amount required to fuel a power reactor - it simply wouldn't be economical to recover the fissile material, purify and downblend it. Note that there is a separate program that takes excess weapons HEU from Russian stockpiles and downblends it for sale as nuclear fuel. This is the "Megatons to Megawatts" program, and it has downblended almost 500 tons of HEU since 1995.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
It is. There's been a big program to do just that called "Megatons to Megawatts": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
fitumpich 13y ago
They do. Decommissioned HEU is downblended to LEU levels for use in power reactors. You dont need that level of enrichment for a power reactor. About 5% enrichment is all commericals reactors use. The program has been in place since the 1990s and is running to this day. It's called Megatons to Megawatts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
snowwrestler 13y ago
In this particular case, the limiting issue was probably international relations. Securing it on-site solves the problem of keeping it away from terrorists, without raising all sorts of questions about access, transport, secrecy, payments, etc. between three nations (U.S., Russia, Kazakhstan).

Amadou 13y ago

We should all take the bit about being able to construct a “relatively sophisticated nuclear device,” with a grain of salt. An actual bomb is beyond the capability of anybody but a nation-state. Al-qaeda, et al don't have a chance of anything more than a dirty bomb. While dirty bombs suck too, they are limited to contamination of a couple of city blocks - not actual kinetic destruction of those blocks and the contaminated have a high survivability level given the kind of treatment immediately available in a city. Also, in this day and age of the NSA and supporters using weasel words, I have to wonder if (a) this info was declassified to support justifications for the NSA and (b) if the line about a "nuclear device" is more weasel wording to sound scary without literally claiming they could build a bomb.

phkamp 13y ago
This is old cold-war spin, and it has been refuted so many times, yet it still surfaces. Read "The curve of binding energy", and you will learn from Ted Taylor, one of the worlds best nuclear warhead designers, that you can make the simplest atomic bomb by dropping one piece of fissile material on another, provided they are big enough to become a critical mass. It won't be tens of megatons, but it will be a perfect terror weapon, spreading panic, making a large-ish area uninhabitable and costing a fortune and many years to clean up. If the terrorists are smart enough bring a couple of sacks of salt, it makes the mess much worse. There are damn good reasons to go out of the way to prevent access to the funny end of the periodic table.
- srean 13y ago
  More qualified people will correct me, but I think there is more to it than dropping a piece of fissile material over another. I think the trick is to keep the pieces together long enough before the forces of explosion rips them apart. As far as I know there have been several examples of accidents were scientists did actually drop a fissile blob over another, and the material did go critical, but thankfully the scientist(s) involved were fast enough to separate the pieces so that no catastrophes ensued. They themselves died as a result of exposure to radiation. As I said, more qualified people will be able to fill in the details and citations.

hristov 13y ago

I feel bad for the Chinese. They are getting irradiated metal without knowing it. There is going to be a lot of pain sickness and suffering caused by this scavenging even thought it will probably never be traced back to Kazakhstan.

jaxb 13y ago
Someone down the line, yeah, but probably not the scrap dealers.
aunty_helen 13y ago
Cheap copper for your iphone.
tanzam75 13y ago
Irradiated just means that it has been exposed to radiation. Doesn't necessarily mean the copper is itself particularly radioactive. Depends on the specific circumstances.
- andreasvc 13y ago
  If it doesn't make the copper radioactive, then of what significance is it that the copper has been irradiated? I understand that irradiation of food kills bacteria, but with a metal I don't see why it matters.
  - Bootvis 13y ago
    Irradiation causes the copper itself to become radioactive. The copper atoms get hit by the radiation which causes some of them to change in radioactive isotopes.
    - tanzam75 13y ago
      As I said, it depends on the particular circumstances. For example, suppose it captures a neutron. Copper has two natural isotopes, copper-63 and copper-65. Copper-64 has a half-life of hours, and decays into Nickel-64 or Zinc-64, both of which are stable and occur in nature. Copper-66 has a half-life of minutes, and decays into Zinc-66, which is stable and occurs in nature. But maybe it didn't capture a neutron. And there might be impurities in the copper that are dangerous when irradiated. Or maybe it was physically contaminated with dangerous isotopes of another element. Just saying that it was "irradiated" doesn't give us enough information to tell what actually happened.

aunty_helen 13y ago

Voz island in the Aral Sea is another example of this happening but on the chemical weapons side of things. Nick Middleton travelled there in 'Going to More Extremes' (which is well worth the watch). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAFGx9nU3q4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAFGx9nU3q4

tlrobinson 13y ago

This reads exactly like the beginning of an action thriller movie.

msantos 13y ago

The dangers of dirty bombs should not be ignored. They surely aren't as destructive as a explosion but nevertheless their possible effects financially and morally are potentially devastating. Just look at the historical results of the Sarin gas attack in Tokyo (sort of a dirty bomb) and the unintentional spread of radioactive material in Goiania/Brazil caused by metal scavengers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6181011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6181011)