Isreali Plutonium Production

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3l
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Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by 3l »

Hi Folks:

I just ran across some interesting facts about Isreal's Nuclear
Weapons Program
Enjoy!

Israel makes plutonium for atomic bombs at Dimona, a secret nuclear complex in the Negev Desert. The French-supplied reactor there has produced plutonium free from international controls since 1963. The quality of the plutonium created by the Dimona reactor is ideal for making atomic bombs.

The size of the reactor at Dimona is listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] as 26 megawatts (thermal). However, experts believe it is much more powerful than that. Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli technician who worked at Dimona for eight years, reported that the reactor had been scaled up twice before he arrived at the site in 1977. The first scale-up was from 26MWt to 70MWt; the second was to some higher level.

The first scale-up was planned when Dimona was built. Israel convinced France to make the reactor's critical components--including its cooling circuit--three times larger than needed for a facility of its nominal size, and three times larger than originally agreed upon. This modification permitted a scale-up to 70MWt without the addition of extra cooling circuits, which would have attracted outside attention.>>>>>>> Further evidence of a scale-up came in late 1968, when Israel diverted 200 metric tons of Belgian uranium on the high seas--a quantity considerably greater than a 26-megawatt reactor would have required.<<<<<<< Israel probably needed the additional uranium for the first scale-up, which appears to have occurred in 1970. (Nope it was on the Belgian ship)

Vanunu also said that Dimona had been producing 40 kilograms of plutonium per year for some time before he arrived in 1977. If the reactor at Dimona was unusually efficient (i.e., producing more than 1 gram of plutonium per megawatt day) and ran for as many as 300 days per year, the 40 kilograms could have been produced with a peak power of sightly more than 100MWt. If the reactor were less efficient, and operated for fewer days per year, the peak power would have to approach 150MWt.

PLUTONIUM EXTRACTION

To be used in weapons, plutonium must be extracted chemically from irradiated nuclear reactor fuel. A French firm, St. Gobain Techniques, supplied Israel with a chemical extraction plant at Dimona. The plant's first trial runs were in late 1965. By 1968, Israel had extracted enough plutonium for an atomic bomb.

The Dimona reactor, if operated continuously, could have created as much as 870 kilograms of plutonium through 1994. This figure assumes that the reactor started operating at 26MWt in 1963, was scaled up to 70MWt in 1970, and was scaled up again in 1977 to a level at which it could produce about 40kg of plutonium per year. Vanunu reported that the extraction plant where he worked produced 1.17 kilograms of plutonium per week for 34 weeks per year, a total of 40 kilograms annually. At this rate, 320 kilograms of plutonium would have been produced during the eight years Vanunu worked at Dimona. If the reactor experienced shutdowns, or was operated at a lower power, this figure could be significantly smaller.

Future plutonium production at Dimona is uncertain, primarily because of the reactor's age. The United States has urged Israel to cap its nuclear program and cease plutonium production at Dimona, but Israel has not agreed to do so.

SIZE OF ISRAEL'S ARSENAL

The above figures for plutonium production indicate that Israel could have up to 175 bombs' worth of plutonium in its nuclear arsenal today. This figure assumes roughly 5 kilograms of plutonium are needed per bomb, including processing losses. (Vanunu reported in 1986 that Israel was using about 4.4kg of plutonium per bomb, an amount slightly greater than the reflected fast critical mass of plutonium-239.)

It is impossible to estimate the exact size of Israel's arsenal without knowing Dimona's true operating history and the characteristics of Israeli nuclear weapon designs. For example, Israel has produced enriched uranium, which could be used to make additional weapons. Israel has also made a number of "boosted" weapons using tritium, also produced at Dimona. Tritium can be produced by irradiating lithium-6 targets in the Dimona reactor.

DIMONA REACTOR:

Reactor: IRR-II
Type: Heavy water
Power: 26-megawatt (thermal) scaled up to 70MWt or more
Start-up: 1963
Safeguards: None
Plutonium created through 1994: Up to 870 kilograms

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Adam Szendrey
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Adam Szendrey »

Well assuming this is true, it is scary.
I just don't know what the hell this Sharon guy wants, stirring up conflicts, and turning Israel into a militaristic power.
First expanding their territory enraging the palestinians, and generally the arabic world, now this wall (a several meters high concrete wall, called a fence...) they are building...
My problem is that the U.S. (along with other countries) backed Sharon up all along, for a reason i just don't know...
This whole conflict was started by Sharon, a conflict that led to 9/11, the train bombs in Madrid, the death of more than 323 people including 154 children in Russia during the attack on a school, and the countless victims in the middle east (including soldiers from all over the world), due to terror attacks and the war that officially has ended there...
I have to ask...why did we (and still do) let Sharon and his gang do what they ever want??

Adam
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by 3l »

Hi Adam:

The Isreali's had great teachers..the Nazis.
Those that lived now ironically use the same techniques as a certain brownshirt dude.
Their racial memory is short and they believe that any means to an end is justified against non Jews like the Palistineans,Lebonese,Egytians, ect.
A normal persom does not know the curbed lightenings all around them. Why do you think that the Isrealites can slaughter folks that bug them at will and take their land? People in this country are responsible for this mess, but we have a loony coillition of the religious right in this country who really want apcolcalypse ( it's in one of them there Bible Chapters ya know ) , one good way to do is to give the Isreali's nuclear weapons capability.
Turn a blind eye to blatent violations of UNSCOM and allow 100's of nukes to be gathered.
Then let the other of God's kids (just remember that good Christian Abraham just couldn't keep his wick in his pants!) fight back. Stirr well. End of the world.

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Q »

all to true, even though it sounds like a dr. evil plan.

and hey, look at it this way, even if the whole world isnt directly involved, once everyone in the middle east kills each other off, thar's oil for the takin'... (please note the sarcasm)

Q
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by davidtrimmell »

Don't forget about the help they got from Apartheid South Africa in their nuclear endeavors. The Lukud and the neocons here in the States are certainly working for very similar goals.

It is sad what happens to the human animal when they are beaten down and only have the bestial survival instincts of the reptilian complex coupled with illogical hatred of foggy memories... The so-called Terrorists are our own creation.

Reap what you sow.

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Richard Hull »

Man's ultimate bestial nature coupled with his inventiveness in destructive systems is the very mechanism nature holds in reserve to thin the herd.

What could be more natural or more effective.

A big thinning is long overdue so big issues swim about us, making everyone universally at odds and most of the players have big and nasty sticks to use. If only one of the attacked feels backed into a corner, The trigger is tripped.

How many will join in the fray, and with what toys, will determine the path of the event and the degree of the thinning. We, as individuals, are utterly powerless in all of this.

Of course, we think we will vote in "Our Man" and all will get better. We have no, "Our Man", they are all, "Their Men".



Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Codecat »

Does anybody know if the 51st state of the union, er, I mean isreal has thermonuclear weapons in the multi-megaton class?

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by davidtrimmell »

Now you are insulting the Porto Rican's

I have never seen anything that speculates on the size of their weapons, but I suspect they are sub megaton as they really wouldn't want to drop a megaton sized weapon on one of their close neighbors like Egypt. To dammed much fallout for the Israeli Homeland.

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Richard Hull »

I would tend to agree with Dave on this. I'll bet they have a slew of tactical nukes in the 10kt to 100kt range and maybe their biggest is a deuterium core boosted 300kt job or something like that. Why go thermo when good ole atom bombs and hybrids are so easy to do.

Rest assured that they would not hesitate to use them if back against the wall. To them, the state of Israel will never cease to exist...period. The hand of god is no longer needed nor relied upon to smite their enemies should the future of the homeland be at stake or should someone nuke them first.

Why do you think the arab nations haven't just rolled over that strip of land?

They know the retribution would throw them back into the stone age.....and for what? Land? They have their own mini version of MAD going on in that sphere of influence.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by 3l »

Hi Guys:

I hate to burst your bubble but Isreal has at least 10 experimental
layer cake bombs ready. They haven't tested one yet. The David Reuben spy case 20 years ago gave them the needed
data to build them and the more efficient Ullam Teller design.
They have benifited from our years of experience in H-bomb design,so they can leap frog testing and build the real deal.
They tell us that they are not deployed. If you believe that one
I have land in Antartica for you...cheap!
All we need now is the anouncement of an Isrealli space agency on CNN. They intend to stay ahead of the Arabs by having bigger guns.Reason will not prevail in the arms race madness between deadly enemies.We at least had a dialog between the two nuclear superpowers, the danger now is that there is no common ground here.

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Codecat »

Hi Again...


Does anyone know if the Isrealies have the facilities to isolate Li-6 in large quantities? Without Li-6, large Ulam type devices are not really possible unless they use a 'wet' or cryo device. I was under the impression (probably mistaken) that only the Soviets, Chinese and the US have large scale Li-6 production capabilities.

Maybe Ike gave them the stuff to make Li-6 like he is rumored to have given them their original fisil material. Or maybe they just ordered it from Sigma chemical.

Does any one remember that after gulf war I, that when weapons inspectors went into Iraq, that they found a stash of Li-6, but of course, no one knew how they obtained it? This was on late night news once, and never heard again.

One wonders at our strange world, doesn't one?

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Codecat »

Hi Larry...

I re-read your post and a strange, brandy induced thought came to mind. (BTW, I do not mix HV and EtOH)

I am sure that there were a few ideiologs both in the Soviet Union and here in the good old US, but I belive that the true nature of the nuclear cold war arms race was good ol' money and power. Neither side wanted to blow up the world, because there was too much money to be made preparing to blow up the world. However in the mid-east, it is nothing but raw, blind and insane hate that is the driving force for their arms race. they couldn't care less if they blow up the world. I take no sides here, it is only an observation, and I wish that it could end. I am facinated by the physics of nuclear and particularly thermo nukes, but am apalled at the death and suffering that just one could cause, let alone hundreds. Someday, I hope that the only fusion that I read about happens in research labs and amateurs' benches as we try to find solutions to our energy and neutron needs! (No, I do not drive a '68 microbus with flowers painted on it!)

73
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by 3l »

Hi Joe:

The Isreallies have a huge supply of lithium in the brackish waters of the Dead Sea. They have a lithium seperaration plant in the Negev desert that is capable of producing tons of Li6 per year. Jane's Defense Quarterly ran pictures of it back in 85 or 86. It uses thermal seperation on liquid lithium metal.

The Soviet atom works sold a small quantity to Sadam but it was under a kilo.

BTW Alpha Aesar sells Li6 deuteride for 96 dollars a gram.

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Codecat »

Hi all...

I don't know if I am remembering this wrong, but it seems to me that sometime in the late seventies or early eighties, that South Africa was rumored to have popped an above ground nuke. It wasn't announced but it just so happened that a weather sat caught it by accident. I have heard that the Isrealies worked with the South Africans on a gun type U device (Hiroshima type).

Does anybody know about this incident? I think that it was in the late seventies now, because I remember it right about the time I started chasing the opposite gender.

I also seem to remember an incident way back when that involved a huge roiling "cloud" over the pacific that a civilian jet liner was flying down wind of. When the piolet reported what he saw, wipe samples were taken from the plane and found to be hot. I think that this was when I was a little younger still, but way after the atmospheric test ban treaty.

Does anybody know any thing about this?

All the best
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by Richard Hull »

You are correct. The event occured in the Indian ocean east of South Africa. It has pretty much become an article of faith that this was an Atom blast set off on a barge or the like by South Africa.

The new government has supposedly dismantled all the nukes they had ( a few) and has declared itself nuclear weapon free.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production

Post by ChrisSmolinski »

Richard Hull wrote:
> You are correct. The event occured in the Indian ocean east of South
Africa. It has pretty much become an article of faith that this was an Atom
blast set off on a barge or the like by South Africa.
>
> The new government has supposedly dismantled all the nukes they had ( a
few) and has declared itself nuclear weapon free.

FWIW, the version of the story I heard is that the old goverment dismanted
the nukes before the end of apartheid.

I have heard stories that it was a joint Israel/South Africa test.
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by 3l »

Hi Folks:

I find it facinating how the US government allows Isreal to run wild.
Exerpts from
Federation of American Scientists
http://www.fas.org/

Israel applies its nuclear weapons to all levels of this formula. The total Israeli nuclear stockpile consists of several hundred weapons of various types, including boosted fission and enhanced radiation weapons ("neutron bombs"), as well as nuclear artillery shells. Strategically, Israel uses its long-range missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft (and, some say, submarines with nuclear-armed cruise missiles) to deter both conventional and unconventional attacks, or to launch "the Samson Option", an all-out attack against an adversary should defenses fail and population centers be threatened. In addition, despite Israel's insistence that it "will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East," these systems represent an effective preemptive strike force. At the same time, Israel deploys tactical systems designed to rapidly reduce an invading force. Following the 1973 war, Israel fielded at least three batteries of atomic-capable self-propelled 175mm cannons equipped with a total of no less than 108 warheads, and placed atomic land mines in the Golan Heights during the early 1980s.

YIKES!

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by Adam Szendrey »

Holy!!
Neutron bombs?? Nuclear landmines?? Good thing i was not drinking something while reading your message Larry, i would've spitted it all over my display...
Neutron bombs...the perfect "tool". Kills organisms, but does limited structural damage...
...If this is all true..i mean the whole world is going crazy (or gone crazy long ago)? Nuclear weapons porograms popping up all over the globe...i would hate to think all the state-of-the-art weapons technologies we don't know of...bio, chemo, and who knows what...
Wow, are we humans good at making weapons, and killing eachother, constantly going into conflicts over pethatic issues...great, i am so proud to be a human :P...ehm...
Yes,yes, i know we have done a number of "wonderful" things aswell...did we? Well, we consider them wonderful, but are they? Well nevermind, this is more of a philosophycal and hystorical topic, than nuclear.

Adam
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by Richard Hull »

You think that is bizarre.........You should read "The Curve of Binding Energy"!! The focus Scientist, Ted Taylor, perhaps the most famous US fissioner and nuke weaponeer, once proposed burying a special high yield fission device incased in a lithium blanket in the arctic ice. It was to be set off and the high plutonium, tritum and heavy isotope yield would be captured in the resulting cavity and ocean of liquified water all ready to be pumped to the surface for massive chemical and isotope separation, exceeding a 10 year total normal national reactor yield of bomb grade materials in one simple blast.

This appeared to be a stroke of shear genius and would have worked on the face of it, but so many of his fellow scientists at Los Alamos were mortified at the thought of actually doing this that opposition was immediate.

However, Taylor had a champion for this scheme in the famous John Von Neuman, then one of the AEC directors. He was fully backing Taylor's massive, high yield, arctic bomb plan and it was moving forward into the planning stage until Neuman's untimely death in 1957, when the plan's detractors prevailed and the shot was cancelled.

Lots of stuff to curl yer toes out there, and most of it DID happen!

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by Adam Szendrey »

There are nukes all over the world, exept for Iraq . Funny and sad at the same time.

That sounds a bit scary indeed, Richard...i mean how do they know they don't blast something that should not be blasted...causing some kind of major structural fault in the arctic ice blanket...
Next thing you know, they are detonating 200 Mt bombs deep in the Earth's crust for some other crazy reason...It's a risky game i think. I should try to get that book some day, sounds interesting (i've read the thread on it, which you started).

Adam
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by Codecat »

I can remember hearing about an ideal that was floated back in the height of the cold war that would have built a tower in the artic with a high yeild (Mike class) device that would be blanketed in a thick layer of cobalt. When detonated, the cobalt would activate (of course) and blow all over the globe, thus killing everything. The last option, I guess. Probably never intended to be built, just something to give that beast Uncle Joe something to think about...

All the best

73
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by David_Potter »

I don't have any problem with Israeli nukes.

They are the only democracy in the entire Middle East, and as far as I'm concerned, have a perfect right to defend themselves. I have been spending a lot of time on Israeli websites ever since 9/11, and even had a few articles I wrote published in some of their newspapers.

There are things going on over there all the time, that Americans simply would not put up with, or tolerate, even for a minute. As far as the nukes go, they are surrounded by a sea of hostile countries, that would not heisitate to destroy their little country in an instant, if they thought they could get away with it.

Think I'm exaggerating?

Osama ben Laden does not represent some fringe element of Muslim society - he is mainstream. The only difference between him and the average Muslim, is that he just happened to have had the financial resourses to put together a terrorist group.

No - I don't have a problem with Israeli nukes at all.

What I do have a problem with, are Islamic fundamentalists getting hold of them.

These people have a culture that is still trapped in the Middle Ages, except that they have access to 21st Century technology. The entire conflict in the Middle East has been about the inability of Islam to adapt to modern ideas. It is a rejection of modern thought, of western culture, and the progressive society that most of us live in.

It's the Holy Crusades all over again.

Islam started the Holy Crusades over a thousand years ago, with the Muslim attack on Constantinople. It then spread to other areas, and became the Middle Age equivalent of a world war. Now history is repeating itself - and Islamic fanatics have struck again; this time in New York, The Pentagon, and other places.

It's all about the inability of Islam to coexist with other religions.

As for the Nazi analogy, it was the Turkish Muslims who first inspired Adolph Hitler in the first place. One of his quotations, from Mein Kemph, was "who remembers the Armenians?"

During the early 20th Century, between 1915 - 1918, Islamic fundamentalists murdered millions of Turkish Christians in the desert. It was a massacre that was on such a wide scale, that it resulted in the extermination of the entire Armenian culture in Turkey. And it was the inspiration for the concentration camps of the Holocaust.

A few escaped into Syria and surrounding countries, but they are barely tolerated there, have few if any rights, and are constantly in fear of Islamic religious police. Israel, by contrast, has not only protected these people - but they have flourished - in the Armenian section of old Jerusalem.

The Israelis are not that bad - guys. A lot of what you see on CNN, and other places, is just blown up media hype. And I gaurantee - if we had Islamic "suicide" bombers (they should be more accurately described as homicide bombers), in a country next door - like Mexico - then not only would we be putting up a fence (yes- we already have one - I know), but we would totally shut down the border.

What I do worry about - is that a cheap fusion reactor - like the kind that many people are trying to build on this site - can ALSO be used to create fissionable amounts of uranium. No - It can not be used - directly - for a bomb. But it does produce nuetrons; and these neutrons can transmute other elements; if the reactor is surrounded by a jacket of the appropriate material.

No - I'm not anti-nuclear; or for that matter, anti-fusion.

But you have to admit - the capability does exist - even with the low neutron outputs available on fusors today. It might not be practical to transmute uranium with home built fusion device; but government research labs in an Islamic country are another matter.

And if the technology actually is perfected, bringing in an era of cheap fusion energy, then the capability will exist for small groups - even individuals - to breed plutonium for a nuclear bomb in their basement.

Once again - I am not anti-nuclear or anti-fusion.

But these capabilities do worry me.

And no - I am neither Jewish or Israeli.
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by Adam Szendrey »

Now all we need is that to be seen by some media person, and be blown into the skies, just what we need...
No, the fusor cannot be used , not even indirectly, to build bombs. If the terrorists want to have a nuke, they buy, or steal one. It's total nonsense to think that any terrorist group (be it religious fanatics, or anybody else) would spend dollar millions to perfect a technology, while there is absolutely no guarantee, that it can be improved.....they can buy ten bombs from that money, or build a fission reactor to breed bomb fuel.
As for nukes, weapons are not the key to peace.
And yes there are fanatics, who kill for their religion, but i wouldn't say that a whole culture is crazy.
Also, those "sacred" wars, the holy inquisition, in the middle ages. What the hell was that all about? What the hell is globalization about (behind the curtain of a utopy)? Influence...that's what it's all about.
Nevermind...different people have different oppinions, and different reasons for having different oppinions.

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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by David_Potter »

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree.

When fusion reactors are perfected - regardless of which method is used - I believe they are going to have the same problems (in terms of weapons proliferation), as fission reactors.

Any small, high density, compact source of neutrons - can also be surrounded by a jacket of uranium 238, which in turn can be used to make plutonium. I think that's a real issue that needs to be addressed, at some future point in time, once the technology is perfected.

On the other hand - I do want to see this technology developed.

It's the only long term answer towards the replacement of fossil fuels, and towards the continuation of civilization as we know it. And I want to see progress go forward - not backwards.

As for the Israeli nukes - in a perfect world I would agree. But unfortunately we do not live in such a world; and the majority of the human race - whether we admit it or not - is not yet civilized. Maybe it's headed in that direction - but it hasn't made it there yet.

A lot of the media hype about Israel is due to the influence of Arab oil. When the last of the oil is gone, there will be fundamental political changes throughout the world.

But as you said, we all have differnt life experiences and opinions. So I will not push the issue. It will either have to stand or fall - based on it's own merits.
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Re: Isreali Plutonium Production Pt2 Application

Post by Adam Szendrey »

Well, ofcourse, what you say about neutron sources is basically true. But the fusor is far from that, very far.

And to continue down this line, this world is indeed far from perfect, very far.
As for being civilized...well that is a strongly relative term.

Our environment is what we make it...and which part has the greatest influence? Where were all the weapons of mass destruction developed? Where do terrorists, fanatics, etc get their "modern weapons" and tactics from? Exactly...the so called civilized world...

This whole conflict (all the conflicts) is because of human nature, which has some fundamental....issues...something that has been said a lot of times.

Adam
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