Can Terrorists Build a Nuclear Bomb? 737
kjh1 writes "Popular Science is just chock full of good articles this month. One in-depth article addresses the question many are afraid to acknowledge is a possibility - can terrorists acquire the raw materials and then deliver a nuclear bomb? A good read that explains the difficulty in doing all of the above, while pointing out calmly that it is still possible." From the article: "Most experts with whom I spoke said that a nuclear terror attack is plausible but not inevitable, and that there's no way to precisely gauge the odds. 'I don't think the public ought to lose a lot of sleep over the issue,' says nuclear physicist Tom Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "
Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't panic!
Apparently U2's instructions [amazon.co.uk] to dismantle one should you find one are selling like hotcakes all over the world.
This is all unfounded paranoia (Score:3, Funny)
Please, a nuke being detonated in America - hey, what is that bright flash outside of my win
.
Why Build, When You Can Buy? (Score:3, Interesting)
It takes some brains to build a bomb. But --
Nuclear weapons and nuclear-grade materials became available to wealthy criminals, with the collapse of the Soviet Union:
The curve of binding energy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The curve of binding energy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The curve of binding energy (Score:3, Informative)
Moreover, he never said 'how bad nukes were' What he said (and what got him in hot water, thanks to that maniac Teller) was that we did not need to go on and develop the Super (aka the hydrogen bomb) because this was the unecessary step into an arms race.
Re:The curve of binding energy (Score:3, Insightful)
Even easier if (Score:2)
Re:Even easier if (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Even easier if (Score:5, Informative)
However, you are quite right that it would be incredibly expensive/complicated for a non-government group to obtain amounts of weapon grade uranium or plutonium sufficient for a critical reaction. And even if they would be able to build a nuclear bomb it would still be extremely hard to transport it to a place were it could be of any use for them (I know that it's in theory possible to build bombs the size of a suitcase, but it would be hard enough for a government to build such a device).
Re:Even easier if (Score:5, Informative)
Well, given that Analog magazine published, in their April 1979 issue, a science-fact article titled "Build Your Own A-Bomb and Wake Up the Neighborhood!" which laid out in clear terms how to build a brute-force gun-type bomb, I'd have to say that the only limitation would be their ability to get enough bomb-grade nuclear material. Admittedly, the device is crude, and not transportable at all; it's essentially a two-story pipe mounted vertically in a building, with one hemisphere of nuclear material at the bottom and one at the top mounted on a heavy lead cylinder that can be dropped down the pipe. However, it's perfectly functional, and aside from the production of the two hemispheres, doesn't require anything more than basic handyman skills to produce -- the 'detonator' involving nothing more complex than pulling out a rod that keeps the upper cylinder from falling down the pipe, and getting someone willing to be there to yank out the rod probably isn't going to be a problem.
The article spends more time focussing on the problem of getting enough bomb-grade material from what was, at the time, the most accessible source of fissiles -- hijacking a truck full of fuel rods and refining the nuclear fuel to get bomb-grade material. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, it's probably a lot easier to get either the fuel or bomb-grade material directly, and getting an actual nuclear device eliminates all of the grunt work. Given the amount of effort needed to refine power-plant grade enriched nuclear fuel, the article suggested, IIRC, that a more effective use of the terrorists' effort would be to grind the fuel into a powder, take it up in a small private aircraft, and dump it out over a large city as they fly around, getting more effective distribution of the contamination. Additionally, spreading the nuclear material directly increases the cost to their target from the hysteria associated with a public announcement of the contamination and the government's attempts to clean it up, not to mention being able to repeat the attack once or twice using nothing more lethal than, say, table salt and still get the same hysteria and government reaction from the residents of the city you claim you've contaminated.
Re:Even easier if (Score:5, Insightful)
In a real nuclear bomb development program, you don't want to waste your hard-to-get HEU/plutonium on a fizzle. So, what is generally done is you take a material with similar properties to your nuclear fuel build test bombs with it (in the case of uranium, you'd use DU). Then, during the collision, you analyze the impact (for example, with high-speed X-ray analysis). This in itself requires a good amount of equipment. Even with all of the "parts" on hand, a proper atomic bomb development program will still take at least half a year and a lot of resources.
Hijacking fuel rods? That'd work for most US nuclear submarine fuel rods (which are highly enriched), but not conventional power plant fuel rods. You'll only have a few % of U235 - you might as well just refine from scratch. If you're talking about spent fuel rods, you can get plutonium out of them, but you have to worry about the differences between Pu239 and Pu240; you don't want to have to separate them, or again, you might as well just start from scratch. Plus, you have to deal with all of the other dangerous radioactive "junk" that builds up in spent rods.
A truck full of spent fuel rods would, however, make for a nice way to irradiate a large area. Put them in a big vat and set two timers: One to dump as much nitric and hydrofluoric acid as you can get your hands on into the mix to dissolve the cladding and possbly some of the fuel, and the second to dump a large tank of gasoline in a couple hours later and ignite it to help burn the radioactive compounds into the air. You should be able to cause a US-based chernobyl that way. Cleanup would be catastrophically expensive, as it was for Chernobyl; and while mass irradiation events aren't frequently filled with mass casualties, the area that they contaminate is rendered uninhabitable for several hundred years (not 10s of thousands or millions like anti-nuclear nuts pretend, mind you, but still a long time).
Re:Even easier if (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
And those were built without the help of computers.
Making a bomb work is simple if you have the nuclear material. Making it make a HUGE bang is hard. Making the bomb itself tiny is hard. But making a bomb is easy.
The thing that is really keeping it from happening, I think, isn't the fact that making a bomb is hard, but making a bomb that can go supercritical with a small amount of fuel is very hard. The Ted Taylor book talks about that issue in some detail. (He made both the largest and smallest fission devices).
Re:Exactly. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cargo ship or moving van. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Informative)
But, the dumb ass congresscritters and the majority of the US bought it and our so called liberal media legitimized it by not pointing out such fallacies.
Re:Exactly. (Score:4, Interesting)
At risk of telling the terrorists how (like they don't already have somebody who knows more than myself telling them) I am going to lay out just how difficult it is to come up with a U-235 device. First take the U-235 and powder it in a inert gas environment. Then Sinter it like a ceramic (very hot here) into two hemispheres or use C-4 to explosively form it into a hemisphere. The latter method is probably the best and fastest. Once formed place one hemisphere on a plate of armor plate steel attached to the muzzle of an Artillery tube say 155 or so. With a fashioned shell probably best aluminum cased load the other hemisphere in the shell to be fired in the gun. Weld the whole thing severely shut with high grade steel with a few slits near the muzzle end to allow pressure to decrease but not clear through. The whole thing needs strong containment.
That is about it for the bomb building except delivery. Difficult but not impossible. The problem of getting the U-235 is difficult but not impossible and takes far less resources than in the old days. The cost is well within those of a fairly rich person. Essentially the process is to take Uranium Hexafloride and Ionize it into a particle accelerator. Taking a set of high tech magnets send the gas down the accelerator tube and the magnets will aim the streams. This process used to be really expensive of energy and such but frankly isn't very expensive due to advanced magnets developed under the US Navy's Advanced Propulsion Project and now made in China... (Anyone suspecting North Korea here is right)
It is probably pretty easy to do this by a chemical process in presence of these strong magnets as well. Something similar to Chromotography. But for those who will argue, this isn't free. It probably could be done for several million dollars now. It would be a lot cheaper in a 3rd world country where you don't care too much about the junk you throw around or the people exposed to it.
Re:Exactly. (Score:4, Informative)
Saying "Don't listen to the President, he's overreacting"
a) doesn't sell as many papers or ads as screaming "WE'RE DOOOOOOMED!! WHO WILL SAVE US?!?!?!"; and
b) is unpatriotic, and as with being a communist, no-one wants to be accused of that
The media sensationalises, that's what it does. I'm not saying it's right, just that it shouldn't be a surprise. It doesn't help, of course, that this is a relatively technical matter, that the average journalist simply doesn't understand. Unless they're given enough time to actually research the story properly (in which case another paper/news show will beat them to it, and steal all the ratings and so advertising revenue) they'll just go with whatever makes the best headline.
Re:Exactly. (Score:3, Interesting)
That is true, but due to the relative inefficiency of these early bombs the large amount of fissile material, well above the theoretical minimal afforded by such innovations as neutron generators and beryllium reflectors, required to fuel the blast requires years of intensive refining in
Re:Exactly. (Score:3, Informative)
That's only true of plutonium-based weapons. Uranium is no danger radiologically, and no more dangerous than lead chemically (if a bit more flammable).
Re:Exactly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Only if (Score:5, Funny)
Only the incredibly naive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lose sleep? No. Sleep with one eye open? Damn right.
Re:Only the incredibly naive... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Only the incredibly naive... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Only the incredibly naive... (Score:5, Funny)
Then the scientist will inevitably give them a bomb casing made of old pinball machine parts, and uses the plutonium to build a time machine.
It's a classic scenario. What we really have to worry about is going back in time and accidentally doing something that makes us cease to exist.
It's already happened (Score:3, Funny)
It's a classic scenario. What we really have to worry about is going back in time and accidentally doing something that makes us cease to exist.
That appears to have already happened, and then been corrected. Unfortunatley, we now have Biff [georgewbush.org] in charge of the world, so things are even worse off in this timeline than they were in both the original timeline, and the one where we don't exist. God damn that delorian and misguided science!
Re:Only the incredibly naive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not understanding why one is your enemy is even worse.
Re:Only the incredibly naive... (Score:4, Funny)
I heard it's because they hate our freedom.
Re:Only the incredibly naive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they need a target for their displaced aggression. The evils of the West are no worse or better then the evils of the Rest. The west is the islamic scape goat. Sure the West takes advantage of the middle east and supports brutal regimes, but those regimes are no worse then the ones they install themselves (IRAN). The injustices the west (the US) does is no worse then the ones they do to themselves (Iraq Massacre of kurds). The only difference is we're not muslims which makes us easier to hate.
Re:Only the incredibly naive... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are going to act like the world's self-appointed policeman you had better be squeaky clean, immune to corruption and free from self-interest - or else all the mistakes, all the bad judgements you make and most definitely all the hostile and destructive acts you commit will be held against you in the most venomous way possible.
The widespread hatred of the US was inevitable, given its foreign policy. It doesn't require the Islamic world to be jealous, or freedom-hating, or innately anti Western. It only requires them to be human, to have a shred of dignity or pride; to own a scrap of ambition to be their own masters free from the oppression of an interfering foreign state. Even in an evil dictatorship, people will still go to war to fight for their country even if they do so half-heartedly.
dirty bombs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:dirty bombs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:dirty bombs (Score:5, Informative)
Dirty Destruction
A dirty bomb produces no nuclear chain reaction, no mushroom cloud. Yet its aftereffects could be devastating
By Michael Crowley
Although experts debate the ease of building a crude nuclear bomb, no one disputes that it is far easier to build a simpler weapon known as a dirty bomb--a conventional bomb that scatters radioactive material. A dirty bomb produces no nuclear chain reaction, no mushroom cloud. Yet its aftereffects could be devastating. In a 2002 computer simulation run by the Federation of American Scientists, a single foot-long piece of radioactive cobalt of the type commonly used in food-irradiation plants was blown up with TNT in lower Manhattan. The simulation found that a 300-square-block area would become as contaminated as the permanently closed zone around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, and that cancer caused by residual radiation could be expected to kill one in 10 residents over the next 40 years. Under current U.S. safety standards, the entire island would have to be evacuated.
Unlike a nuclear bomb, a dirty bomb can be made from radioactive materials such as cesium, strontium and iridium, commonly found in hospitals and construction sites. Experts fret about security at such sites, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that because these materials decay quickly and only negligible amounts have been lost or stolen in the U.S., it's doubtful that terrorists could have accumulated enough to make even a single dirty bomb.
Dangerous amounts of material have gone missing elsewhere, however, and the U.S. is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to inventory existing sources and, when possible, remove or lock them up. It's a monumental task, but the possibility of Manhattan becoming another Chernobyl makes it essential.
Re:dirty bombs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:dirty bombs (Score:3, Informative)
Try 15.000:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/722533.st
Hysteria? (Score:4, Informative)
After the cloud arrived, there were areas in Germany (esp. Bavaria) where you shouldn't eat (wild) mushrooms and venison anymore because of the radiation. And even today, almost 19 years after, it is not wise to eat too much of certain mushroom types. The joys of half-life.
If that's what you call hysteria, I'd like to get your definition of severity.
Re:Hysteria? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your sunny Denver day doesn't create a radioactive environment. The Chernobyl cloud did. Kids playing outside were not only "roasted", but also inhaled/swallowed the stuff. Same happens when eating those mushrooms and deers.
Spot the difference?
Re:Hysteria? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am. It was the parent poster who liked to compare the side effects of a dirty bomb with a sunny day in Denver, not me.
I don't have any numbers at hand, so my answer would be identical with what Google could deliver you. The most affected place probably was the Bavarian Forest.
I can't remember any expected death rates, but I recall t
Re:dirty bombs (Score:4, Informative)
It depends on the size of the bomb. Really, you have the bomb explosion that causes the damage and the exposure to radiation likely makes the place the bomb exploded uninhabitable or at least undesirable. An explosion like the one in oklahoma city could probably carry the material a few city blocks at least.
Some links:
Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76873,00.html [foxnews.com]
BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2037769.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Overall, the number of casualties might not be that large but the psychological and economic impact could be huge.
If one if these went off in lower Manhattan, it could cost billions between lost business and people not wanting to go back to NYC.
I read the article before it was posted here on Slashdot, and the book Nuclear Terrorism. I have no doubt that terrorists could create a dirty bomb and if they had the resources and the time come up with a conventional nuclear weapon.
After all, if a teenage American boy [failuremag.com] could make a nuclear reactor [chron.com] in his backyard what makes you think terrorists can't make a nuclear weapon?
Re:dirty bombs (Score:3, Funny)
So were talking about something that can transform a place in to New Jersey?
Re:dirty bombs (Score:3, Informative)
For the record, he never got far enough along to make a nuclear reactor, and most people say that he never would have been able to get that far, based on his financial limitations and limited access to materials.
It's a goo
Re:dirty bombs (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I for one am not the least bit worried about New York City or San Francisco being vaporized. I live in the Mid-West. In neither case would the fallout drift overhead.
Are you worried about the impact on your life, livelihood, financial security, freedom (i.e. after martial law is imposed in the US), etc. that the loss of New York City would entail? You should be.
Re:dirty bombs (Score:3, Insightful)
Hello? You're talking about people who plan suicide missions.
Scared (Score:3, Funny)
Sleep! No time for that now after that article. Thanks a fucking bunch Popsci. As if my dreams weren't f'd up enough.
Better link (Score:2, Informative)
The printer-friendly version of the article, with all the text on one page instead of spread out over 5.
Do they need to? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do they need to? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Do they need to? (Score:3, Insightful)
This article completely glosses over all of that.
Re:Do they need to? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like me saying "I overclocked my 4 gig processor to 5" Do I need it? no, it's just to say it and sound special
Re:Do they need to? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a terrorist group is able to build a dirty bomb that causes mass casualties why would they want a nuke?
Because dirty bombs aren't designed to cause mass casualties. Their main effect is fear; with the popular in terror of anything 'nuclear', they are ideal for cowing a whole population. Hell, you don't even need to detonate one; just the thought of a dirty bomb is good enough to terrorize people. The current mindset in the USA is ample evidence of this.
They can also render an (albeit-small) area of real estate uninhabitable for a lengthy period of time. This of course can lead to a significant amount of economic fallout.
Re:Do they need to? (Score:3, Informative)
Usually exposing a larger group of people with enough radioactivity to make them sick will be able to jam the whole non-contaminated part of your medical system. And there are zip drugs against radiation sickness. The stuff you refer to is jodite which is supposed to block the thyroid gland in case of a nuclear indicent with non-radioactive jodite to prevent accumulation of radioactive jodite isotopes that will cause very lik
Well... (Score:3, Funny)
I think it would be possible to build (Score:2)
Re:I think it would be possible to build (Score:2)
Not so difficult when you've got a large cadre of people willing to blow themselves up for the cause.
So far so good... (Score:2, Insightful)
The coral link (Score:2, Informative)
Asking the wrong questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asking the wrong questions... (Score:2)
You win the prize for the greatest misunderstanding of human nature. Congratulations.
Re:Asking the wrong questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
And I thought Saudi Arabia was a very rich country. Silly me.
You know, the terrorist leaders are all wealthy men. Arafat was a billionaire, ditto bin Laden. Why aren't people like you demanding they share THEIR wealth and improve the condition of THEIR people?
Re:Asking the wrong questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Iraq demonstrably did not have nuclear weapons. They were invaded and their leader deposed.
The USA reservers the right to use nuclear weapons in self defense. Other countries believe they have the same right. So they are urgently developing nuclear weapons to prot
Tom Cochran the singer? (Score:2)
Creating a more distributed country (Score:2)
I fear that NYC is a dangerous single-point-of-failure waiting to happen. Decentralizing the economic might of the country (reducing the number of company HQs in NYC and relocating financial networks to outlying areas) would reduce the magnitude of any
No Sleep (Score:2)
Mr. Cochran then proceeded to run back into his armored bunker as he chuckled to himself "Would you like to play a game?".
But where would they get the plutonium? (Score:2)
Terrorists? (Score:3, Insightful)
What would you use such a powerfull bomb for?
To prepare occupation?
The only thing such a bomb is useful for is to create fear, terror in your enemies' hearts.
Re:Terrorists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Terrorists? (Score:3, Informative)
Build vs Buy (Score:2)
Most people in the Defense and Military sectors around the world say that terrorists or any small nation wanting nuclear capability will NOT build a nuclear bomb. It is much easier, cleaner and way cheaper to buy it from a willing seller.
Nuclear facilities attack more likely... (Score:2)
Assessing the risk of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities In recent years there has been increased awareness of the risk of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities, which could have widespread consequences for the environment and for public health.
This is an interesting 148 page report about the risk of terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities in the UK [parliament.uk]
Or the quick four page summary [parliament.uk] ;-)
Interesting the worries this report generated as politicians and commentators thought it might be a how-to guide
War on Terror v. War in Iraq (Score:2)
Derek
I won't be losing any sleep (Score:5, Insightful)
BS Alert! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to call BS on this one. There've been, what, ~3500 terrorist-caused deaths in the US in the past decade? With your math, there must have been 35,000,000 US car accident deaths in that same decade. Traffic deaths, however, are closer to about 40,000 a year -- not 3,500,000 a year.
What's hard about building a bomb? (Score:4, Interesting)
All they'd have to do is have someone look up what that kid wrote in the late seventies. He got a visit from the FBI, I think - his science project was "how to build a nuclear bomb", and they looked *really* dumb when he showed them that he'd only gotten stuff out of magazines and standard texts.
Hell, I have a 20 year old issue of, umm, Mother Jones? that has a cover story on how to do it. Of course, the hardest part is the centerfuging, when you have the liquid in a bucket, and have to spin around as fast as you can in the living room for half an hour.
mark "this is 'secret'?"
Probably easier to buy one (Score:3, Insightful)
I decentralized myself 12 years ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why build when you can buy or steal? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, why would terrorists want to even try this? Assuming they wanted a real nuclear detonation rather than a dirty bomb, isn't the possibility of purchasing or stealing an intact, complete weapon of more concern? Reading this [cfrterrorism.org] doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies about the former Soviet Union. And remember, the Pakistanis and North Koreans have the expertise, know-how, materials, and a desperate need for hard currency.
Not a Holocaust (Score:5, Insightful)
First the bomb is likely to be detonated at ground level, or a few stories up in a garage. This limits the blast damage significantly. Assuming an urban environment, tall buildings would also limit the devices blast effectiveness. US and Soviet bombs of the Cold War were several *mega*tons, and were detonated several thousand feet in the air. With a terrorist's bomb you will not see the massive air burst followed by a blast wave that topples buildings and vaporizes people for miles.
The most dangerous effect from small bombs detonated at ground level is fallout. This would likely be enhanced by the very structures that limited the blast radius. Surrounding buildings would force radioactive dust and debris up, making the likelihood of winds blowing the fallout over a larger area higher.
Indeed, a nuclear detonation in Manhattan would destroy several blocks and kills tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. Such an event would be devastating to our economy and to the lives of millions. IMHO this is something completely different from Cold War style nuclear scares. A nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union would have killed hundreds of millions of people, billions in the after effects. Here, the likelihood of you being personally and directly harmed by a terrorist nuclear weapon is relatively low when compared to the effects to the economy on a national (and global) scale.
Go read 'Sum of All Fears' (Score:5, Interesting)
Clancy's 'Sum of All Fears,' circa 1990 or so, IIRC, has that exact plot; Islamic terrorists build a nuke.
In the afterword, he laments the fact that information on how to build a nuke was SO easy to obtain, he felt obligated to not reproduce it in his book. He mentions calling up Oak Ridges and asking about specs for some of the fabrication machinery, and having blueprints FedEx'd to him the next day.
Why build when you can buy ready made? Call Today! (Score:3, Interesting)
Some might say it's a little kooky to imagine a black market for ready-made nukes, but is it really any less likely than a group like Al Queda building one from scratch? These people have money, lots of money; and everyone, even countries, has their price. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't focus all our attention on the raw materials and brains required to build one for an independent organization like Al Queda, when they could just as easily follow our American lead and outsource their dirty work to someone else.
Orwell said it best (Score:5, Interesting)
Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralized police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a 'peace that is no peace.'
-- George Orwell, "You and the Atomic Bomb," October 19, 1945
Surely the answer is "yes" but why would they? (Score:3, Informative)
"Gun type" - This was the way they built the Hiroshima bomb. Two bits of fissile material banged into each other using high explosive to form a critical mass. This only works with Uranium as plutonium bombs built using this method would "fizzle"- chain reaction kicks off before the core go's critical. Nobody makes bombs like this because of the inherent danger of accidental detonation- they could concievably go off in a crash or fire. The advantage of this type of bomb is that it's easy to make and you can be pretty sure it will go off ok (which is why they chose it for Little Boy).
"Implosion type"- a sphere of fissile material with a hollow in the middle is crushed into a critical mass using explosive lenses. This is much more efficient than the gun type due to the increased density and the detonation speed. Getting the high explosive lenses right is a real bastard though. The literatures pretty light on the explosive details strangely enough.
So, basically, your common or garden "building it in his cave" terrorist stereotype is going to have to go for the gun type. All the cross section and neutron transport data's available, you only need some world war II tech high explosives and machining ability and you're done. Thing is you're limited to highly enriched uranium.
Ok, so nobody's serious suggesting that any non-governmental group is enriching their own uranium (at least I hope not). So they have to aquire very high U235 content uranium from somewhere. Where's the only place you find this? Bombs. Basically I reckon that anyone in a position to sell terrorists material for a bomb is in a position to sell them one pre-assembled.
Dirty bombs (Score:3, Insightful)
A device would not have to be very large or have a 12 kiloton yield to do alot of damage. Property would most likely be lost at ground zero, the real threat would be the iradiated area and secondary fallout carried on wind currents. Imagine one going off in Central Park large enough to iradiate the total area of the park. How many residents would be in that area at any given time?
This worries me more than bieng caught in the blast from an ICBM, at least then it flash, your dust. But a death from radiation poisoning, that is terrifying.
Re:Dirty bombs (Score:3, Insightful)
Radioactive cobalt is easy to obtain (Score:5, Informative)
-
Radioactive cobalt dumped in vacant lot in Bangkok. [blacksmithinstitute.org] 3 dead, 12 injured.
-
Radioactive cobalt shows up in scrapyard in Turkey. [radcommsystems.com] Two injured cutting up the scrap.
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Radioactive cobalt shows up in scrapyard in Brazil. [citizen.org] Four dead, 300 exposed.
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Radioactive cobalt shows up in Mexico. [americaspolicy.org] Recycled into rebar and metal furniture. One known dead, injuries unknown. Discovered when some of the furniture was trucked to Los Alamos and set off radiation alarms.
And that's with the stuff in big chunks. "Weaponized", ground into a powder for distribution, it would be far more dangerous.Why Bother? (Score:3, Interesting)
You want to do damage, it's a whole lot easier to buy a truckload of fertilizer, and openly buy 500 gallons or so of diesel fuel from any truck stop for cash, and if you have them delivered to a farm, nobody will notice or even think twice about it as it would be routine, and the chances are excellent you can get away with it and never be caught.
For probably $10,000 you can create a dozen nasty good sized bombs without even having to do anything which in any way looks suspicious or illegal until you set the damn thing off. I doubt that you can go nuclear on less than a million. A million bucks will probably buy you a thousand Oklahoma City-sized bombs, but at best gets you one lousy nuke. Which is going to have more effect for the same amount of money? One spectacular bomb that kills about the same number as the World Trade Center, Second Edition, or a thousand WTC-sized bombs?
Estimates are the WTC attacks cost Al-Qaeda maybe $100,000. Would a nuclear bomb have done better in terms of horror, publicity or terror than two hijacked airliners? Above a certain level it really doesn't matter, you've already made your point, and trying to use even stronger methods doesn't buy you anything more.
Further, you don't have to be a martyr to use ANFO, but you'd better be intending to die if you use a nuke, because otherwise if you drop a nuke, you guarantee they will hunt you down for as long as it takes. And let's not forget that it's possible for a very tiny group (2 people, maybe even just 1) can set up an ANFO bomb. And it doesn't take a whole lot of smarts to do it. It's going to take a lot more people - with intelligence - to set up a usable nuke.
Re:And now, a message from our sponsors (Score:2)
Re:And now, a message from our sponsors (Score:5, Insightful)
"We in the US media wish to shield you from this world. We bring you only news stories from your own country,
The top two stories on CNN. The headline and the one on the top right.
1. Blasts rock Baghdad, kill 20
2. Putin: Iran not developing nukes
Top stories on Fox news:
1. Attacks Target Shiites in Baghdad
2. Putin: Iran Has No Nuke Plans
The US reports plenty of world news. I know while any post that says (something in the US = bad) is modded up here, this is just silly. When the Tsunami happened, it was 24/7 Tsunami coverage here. When the Russian Schoolchildren were held by terrorists it was basically 24 hour coverage. Sorry if CNN doesn't report soccer scores from around the world, but America doesn't care about trival stuff from around the world.
unless the story furthers the goal of making you even more freightened. Besides, who wants any real news about other countries?
The BBC is available in America, the fact is people are more interested in their local news than world news. Sorry if this bothers you. It isnt' a media consperacy though, it's just a free market economy reacting to what people want.
They don't even have NASCAR in those strange lands!
I guess you are trying to generalize about southerns now, since NASCAR's following is mostly in the more rural section of the country.
Do you really care about what happens in a place without NASCAR, unless they are IMMINENTLY ready to attack! Like SHARKS, and ASBESTOS, and POWER LINES!!! News at 11!!!!!!"
Please. Yes, people care more about trivial events in their own country than trivial events around the world. When something big happens, it is covered ad nausem.
Re:And now, a message from our sponsors (Score:5, Insightful)
Grandparent: unless the story furthers the goal of making you even more freightened.
You: The top two stories on CNN. The headline and the one on the top right. 1. Blasts rock Baghdad, kill 20 2. Putin: Iran not developing nukes
I don't see how stories about insurgents in Iraq (essentially equivalent to terrorists, and spun as a threat to the US) and nukes in Iran disprove the original point.
As to people being naturally more interested in their local news, well, sure. But the tendancy is far more pronounced in the USA. There may be any number of reasons for it, but it's certainly the case. Let's compare the top stories on news.bbc.co.uk, for example: Aside from the Baghdad explosion, the top two stories are about Nepal and the Congo.
Care to rebut?
Re:Nut Job States (Iran) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nut Job States (Iran) (Score:3, Insightful)
To response to your other trolls: Iranians are Persians, not Arabs. Also, this has nothing to do with ethnicity or skin color. It has to do with character and morality.
Re:Good Question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anybody who thought about it at all realized that it was inevitable that a tsunami of this scale would hit sooner or later. It is an event that is, as mathemeticians say, "Poisson distributed", that is to say that it is like the decay of a radioisotope and the resultant emission of a particle. It can happen at any time, but it can be characterized by a rate, which is a probability that it will happen in some specific period of time. The rate for massive tsunamis in the Indian ocean, as it happened, was very low, so nobody was concerned it would occur this year, and or even in our lifetimes. So few people other than professional tsunami watchers probably thought the expense of building a warning network was warrented. And who knows? There may have been other investments that would have, based on mathetmatical expected return, saved more lives.
But now that it has happened, of course everyone wishes we'd spent the money to put a warning system in place. And, in fact, we almost certainly will. It's hard to say whether this is the best investment, but there are other reasons to do so I guess.
The case of nuclear terrorism has both similarities and differences. It is different, in that there is a human agency involved that would do this sometime in the next several years if it could. But they are somewhat unlikely to be able to do this, due to steps we have taken to prevent that. If we take further steps, it becomes extremely unlikely. But it never quite becomes impossible. At some point, we may be able to drive the threat of nuclear terror down to the point where it is a lot like the pre-tsunami situation. People not professionally involved will question the value of the next marginal investment in prevention. And they will, arguably, have a point. But when the disaster actually happens, hopefully some generations hence, people will have wished to have done more.
At the same time, there are other possibilities, like the killer asteroid scenario, that could use some attention. The problem is you just don't know in advance which disaster will happen to you. Choosing what to do is not simple. Suppose you are examining the possibilty that an asteroid capable of spreading the destruction of a small nuclear bomb is going to hit a population center. Suppose (hypothetically, of course) it turns out to be 10x more likely than a terrorist attack of the same magnitude. We should spend our money on asteroid defense, right? Well, what if it costs 100x as much to do something about it?
In short, you have to know the marginal value of a dollar invested in terms of incresed security.
Well, here's another one (Score:3, Informative)
Well, if you find that funny, I have another good one for you
The Poisson distribution was named after Simeon Poisson [wikipedia.org].
So the irony is doubled. Or standing on its head or something.
Re:Building a NUKE (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the design of the Hiroshima bomb. In its favour, it is so easy to build that the US didn't even bother testing it before they used it.
Nukes that are portable enough to let off
Re:Best Defense: Westernization (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on, the problem is not as simple to solve as "let's westernize them" - look how well that went in Iraq.
IM (very) HO, America needs to deal with terrorism by analizing what makes it appear
Re:Best Defense: Westernization (Score:3, Insightful)
Noooo, he wanted change now, so we decided to go piss ev
Re:Best Defense: Westernization (Score:3, Insightful)
And keep in mind, before September 11th, there was a previous attempt to topple the WTC. I believe the bombing (which I believe was under the Clinton administration) was supposed to cause one building to collapse into the other.
Re:Best Defense: Westernization (Score:3, Interesting)
And the brutal treatment of Iraqi children by americans speaks volumes about the west. Not to mention the lovely photos of Abu Ghirab.
If the US weren't such a sadistic nation they'd have won by now. I am sure for far less then the $300Billion spent so far. They could have sent in a platoon of realtors into Iraq, bought everything, set everyone up with a low priced GMAC home mortgage and had a Mc Donalds on eve