4 ms·
I see this as the main takeaway from the article instead: > One or two 233U bombs were tested in the Nevada desert during the 1950s and, perhaps ominously, ano
by nnq 13y ago
I see this as the main takeaway from the article instead:
> One or two 233U bombs were tested in the Nevada desert during the 1950s and, perhaps ominously, another was detonated by India in the late 1990s. [...] intense gamma radiation 233U produces fries the triggering circuitry
...this only shows that military use is possible! For someone less concerned about safety and more concerned about having a nuclear weapon at all costs, it might be even easier. That triggering circuitry is definitely a solvable problem... brrrrrr
- eleitl 13y agoNot just the proliferation resistance is a myth, but there are several others making the round: http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium_myths.html http://www.whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium_myths.html
- hga 13y agoYeah, chemical separation + gun assembly warheads is a particularly bad path to allow, side steps the two hardest current things required (non-chemical uranium enrichment and implosion based warheads).
- apendleton 13y agoCertainly it's possible, but it's much harder to do without frying either the triggers or the engineers (gamma rays and people don't play well together), so the conventional wisdom is that non-thorium fuel sources would be lower-hanging fruit, and the pool of actors who could potentially make a bomb with it (or the U233 from further down the fuel cycle) is smaller than with plutonium or enriched uranium. "Proliferation-resistant" is the claim, not "proliferation-proof."