Fusor Forums

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?

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
Codecat

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.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
Fusor Tech

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
Codecat

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

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.

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!

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
Fusor Tech

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 ...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

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

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

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
Codecat

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.

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.

Adam

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.

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

My definition of civilization does not automatically include the developed world - nor does it necessarily exclude the undeveloped countries. I think that civilization can not be defined, without including a moral factor.

Were the Nazis of WW 2 civilized? Despite their relative high degree of technology? Hardly! So while technology is one of the factors, I do not believe that it should be the only defining one.

In fact - it could be argued that even a small village, on a tropical island somewhere - without any technology at all - could still have been more civilized than the Nazis.

I'm not sure what the definition of civilization is - but I'm sure what it isn't. Maybe that's part of the struggle - to understand what it is - before we annhililate ourselves as a species.

It really isn't about religion, but more about poverty. Islam speaks clearly to those with little in this life, as do the other great religions. It will only be when the human species can move beyond the basil animalistic desire for survival and the fear of death, and then we can move beyond the beasts. Science will always best mythology.

'Ol Bin is not mainstream Islam, to be sure. Wahabi thought is not popular in the more educated and less marginalized classis.

But back to Fusion; The Fusor is way behind many other methods to produce Neutrons that could be used to breed the well sought after fissionable species. 10^9 n/sec/cm^2 (beyond amateurs here as of yet) is way below what is needed to make Pu-239 in any usable quantity.

Israel does have the right to exist, as they do, but their Nukes do no one any good except for those who read too much from Revelation.

To a more peaceful New Year!

David Trimmell

David is one of the few who knows about the Armenian, multi-million mass slaughter and land grab of the post WWI era at the hands of the remains of the old Ottoman empire.

It was the seed that fused the idea into the head of Hitler that no one would really notice or even care if a few million beings disappeared from the planet by systematic, controlled and well concealed extermination. He saw it happen just a few years before Mein Kampf was penned in Armenia with not a single international recrimination, much less, action on behalf of any nation.

We all wrung our hands only recently over the hundreds of thousands of tootsi people hacked to death in Africa, all just wishing it would stop. It did, of course, without any foreign intervention and without one UN action.........There were just not that many toosi people left to hack up. The remains fled to another country to avoid the fate of the bulk of their fellows.

It is only this information age that makes one human being aware or shamed into caring about the fate of the Tsunami victims.

Natural disasters, NOT PREVENTABLE, bring instant relief, but hacking rampaging humans raise not one hand to stop the carnage WHICH IS PREVENTABLE. We know how to combat God's effort to "thin the herd" but not man's terror whether it be by machette or by M1 Abrahms of fully fueled passenger jet used as a missle.

We are all the same people, only more informed and more driven by the guilt of past inaction in helping our fellow beings. We have not evolved one iota since the time of Rome's glory.

Only perception has changed due to a myriad of factors. Inaction remains the order of the day in the face of "other" people's slaughter.

Successful fusion will only save and help preserve the status quo in developed nations.

We need not even dream of altering man intrinsically, but only his direct action.

Richard Hull

I will deviate a little...to a more philosophycal branch..

Maybe a partial wipeout of the human race would open some eyes, some doomsday scenario....nope...that had happened a couple of times, no effect...
I sometimes look at people rushing all around, running, paying bills, working their guts out, then i look into the mirror, and i ask: What the hell are we doing?? And why??
We rush OUR OWN SELVES into all of this!! It's so funny! And while i laugh i could cry..
"Why the hell can't we do this the right way? Why does it have to be like this?" I ask so many times from myself...a lot of people simply cannot even understand the weight of these questions. Our whole civilizations is so....irrational...stupid..dumb...
We cut the tree under ourselves..how does that make sense to anyone? I'm not talking about pollution, that is a very little part of it. I'm talking about our whole way of life, our thinking.

Well, nevermind, i will never understand...
You know what feels horrible?
When i tell other people not to do something, i tell them it's bad, that it's plain dumb, and after that, i do it myself, and realize it!
There is nothing worse than realizing our own weaknesses. To admit them to ourselves. But then again, it's also good. Because we can fight those weaknesses!

I suspect that most people look away, choose a simpler, more primitive path...like killing for food, shelter, etc...while with thinking, it would be clear that an alliance is more fruitful on the long run.
But it's even worse when killing is done for power, dominance. Or for objects...sometimes for a shoe...or a piece of jewelry...simple minded, primitve acts...
This primitive thinking gives birth to so much violence, and suffering...
I ask...will our dominantly violent nature ever change? Or the old question: Will we learn?

If there is no other way, we will learn the hard way....all thanks to ourselves...
That's all

Adam