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Security United States Science

What's Being Done About Nuclear Security 161

Posted by timothy from the here-catch dept.
KrisCowboy writes "Wired.com has an interesting article about Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's speech about the defensive measures being taken at the Nuclear Energy warehouses. 'Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads,' he promises. Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast."
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What's Being Done About Nuclear Security More

What's Being Done About Nuclear Security

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  • Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acxr is wasted ( 653126 ) * on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:27PM (#9096454)
    'Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads,'

    Hmph, to put it where exactly? [doe.gov]

    • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Allen Zadr ( 767458 ) *
      I was thinking exactly the same thing. Everyone has the same battle-cry, "Not in MY state."

      Of course, it could stay in New Mexico, but they don't want it either. Well, I guess it's time to talk about sending it into the Sun!

      • then they have a different battle cry!

        But it could blow up on the way there! Remeber Challenger?

        • Re:Whatever (Score:5, Informative)

          by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@gmaYEATSil.com minus poet> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:26PM (#9096764) Homepage Journal
          But it could blow up on the way there! Remeber Challenger?

          1. Challenger was not carrying nuclear materials.
          2. Depleted nuclear materials cannot blow up.
          3. Non depleted fissionable materials cannot blow up without being packed inside a traditional explosive.
          4. Fissionable materials are stored in neutron inhibiting material to prevent fission.
          5. Accidental fission results in lots of heat and radiation. No boom.
          6. Old style reactors could experience boiler explosions. (e.g. Chernobyl) This is on the order of an industrial disaster rather than a nuclear bomb.
          7. Fission bombs need to be carefully shaped and triggered by explosives to blow up.
          8. Fusion bombs (e.g. H-Bombs) require a fission bomb + a closed neutron reflector + a container of hydrogen/tritium. Remove any of these and fusion cannot occur.

          Any questions?

          • I have a question.

            So are you saying that if the Chalenger or a similar spacecraft were to explode with nuclear material on board there would be no danger?

            • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)

              by AKAImBatman ( 238306 )
              So are you saying that if the Chalenger or a similar spacecraft were to explode with nuclear material on board there would be no danger?

              That depends. If it was carrying something like an RTG, then no, no danger. RTGs are packed in nearly indestructible casings that have been tested in multiple launch failures.

              If it were carrying unprotected nuclear materials, then there is a danger of it raining down and causing several cases of cancer. However, I can't think of any reason for the shuttle to do this. Eve
              • 1. TRGs are insanely heavy.

                2. Allthough they are made to withstand a train crash or a plane crashlanding, I don't think they can take a Challenger style explosion and then a free fall from 5000+ meters. I remember reading something about them beeing vulnerable to certain angles of impact.

                • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Informative)

                  by AKAImBatman ( 238306 )
                  1. TRGs are insanely heavy.

                  That's sort of the point. :-) Usually the RTG has a few pounds of plutonium, a pound or two of electronics, then about 50 or so pounds of shielding.

                  2. Allthough they are made to withstand a train crash or a plane crashlanding, I don't think they can take a Challenger style explosion and then a free fall from 5000+ meters. I remember reading something about them beeing vulnerable to certain angles of impact.

                  No, these are designed for unprotected reentry, unlike the "black box
              • If it were carrying unprotected nuclear materials, then there is a danger of it raining down and causing several cases of cancer. However, I can't think of any reason for the shuttle to do this. Even if it did, the shuttle's trajectory takes it over the ocean so that the likeliness of human injury is as low as possible.

                Yeah.

                Just don't eat the 3-headed fish.

          • Re:Whatever (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Mekkis ( 769156 )
            Let me repost a comment I made from the Hafnium story. Depleted nuclear materials are still DEFINITELY dangerous. Heightened security stateside sounds like a case of closing the barn door after the horse got out...
            Hey, kiddies. We're worried about the evilbadnasty terrorists getting their hands on rogue nukes from the former USSR that might be floating around out there, or worse, constructing their own 'dirty bomb' with internet-fueled recipies, sneak it into the land of the Great Satan and start nuke-
            • -1 Uninformed, Fear Mongering fool

              A dedicated Boy Scout could easily make either a low-yield nuclear bomb using enough 'spent' uranium to make a subcritical mass (remember, Mouseketeers, that 'spent' fuel rods are still highly radioactive and it just takes a lot more to reach subcritical mass than ordinary uranium)

              You can't make depleted uranium fission. All the fissionable materials have already been used up. Even if you could force it to fission, it's not pure enough to be a bomb. You'll simply make t

    • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)

      by HolyCoitus ( 658601 )
      I guess the perceived difference being that someplace else would not be vulnerable to one of the countries many enemies accessing it? Because, you're right, it's not like we can just make the waste magically vanish. It has to go somewhere.
      • <Sarcasm>What ever happend to launching it into the sun?</Sarcasm>

      • Re:Whatever (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Exactly.

        It would go from a small problem of a potential terror target to a large one if we moved it haphazardly (and some went up missing). This kind of thing takes time. But the worst thing that we can do is try to rush it because its a target (this isn't an excuse to sit on it forever though).
    • No state is going to accept radio active waste, so why don't we just send it over to the middle east so they can dispose of it? They're half a world away! Its FOOLPROOF!
    • Just wait for the big meteor to head towards earth, and then we can send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to lob our nukes on it! :D

      *hides from the impending thrown knives heading his way!*

    • Re:Whatever (Score:3, Funny)

      by bfischer ( 648685 )
      How about we outsource it to India?

    • Re:Whatever (Score:2, Funny)

      by cfuse ( 657523 )
      Hmph, to put it where exactly?

      Isn't the current plan to put it into bunker busters and rain it indescriminately on any country with oil?

  • So much for RTOFA.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by NewbieProgrammerMan ( 558327 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:30PM (#9096478)
    Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast.
    Yes, better get right on that. And while you're at it, make sure you hide all the palladium and water so those crafty terrorists can't make a cold fusion bomb...

  • oxymoron (Score:1, Funny)

    by mabu ( 178417 )
    "nuclear security"

  • Ironically... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by unterderbrucke ( 628741 ) * <unterderbrucke@yahoo.com> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:32PM (#9096495)
    Atomic weapons storage being centralized will probably increase rather than decrease risk of terrorism.
    • In a way I'd have to agree. It would give the attacker only a single target and any problems with that targets security could end up with it being compromised.
      Although, with something like nuclear materials, does it matter if only one out of hundreds of targets are attacked?
      The results could still be rather dramatic.

    • Re:Ironically... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Zordak ( 123132 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:57PM (#9096621) Homepage Journal
      No, the only danger is that if somebody does breach security, they would have access to more material. With lots of sites, there are lots of different security systems, meaning more potential points of failure. It's not like it's a distributed system where you have to get all of the material for it to be useful. By consolidating, you reduce your number of potential points of failure and have a single system to concentrate on. Think about it, if you have some highly-critical data, and somebody getting any of it is pretty much as bad as somebody getting all of it, would you rather have it sitting on one computer that you lock down like crazy, or on a couple of hundred that you have to try to lock down individually?

      • Re:Ironically... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by loraksus ( 171574 )
        You missed his point, there would be literally thousands of trucks / convoys needed to transport this across the country. Each being a target.
        Considering a .50 Cal BMG rifle can be bought by civilains with little or no background checks for as little as $1700 (with ammo for about $1 a round), this is a pretty big concern. 50 BMG will penetrate damn near anything and will have a nice range to boot. If you're bored (or if someone else is) figure out the kinetic energy that a 650 grain projectile has at 900m/s

        • Re:Ironically... (Score:3, Informative)

          by gantzm ( 212617 )
          I'm not sure, what exactly was your point? That we shouldn't be trucking this stuff around, or that individuals shouldn't have access to rifles that fire .50 Cal rounds ?

          If you believe the problem is the rifle, you are in for a big surprise. Preventing access to those rifles will stop nothing. Any group that is willing to hijack a truck full of nuclear waste is probably more than capable of assembling a small machine shop and building their own weapons.

          If I wanted to crack one of these waste caskets

          • Re:Ironically... (Score:3, Informative)

            by loraksus ( 171574 )
            maybe your point was just not to be trucking to stuff around in the first place.

            yeah. Many targets.

            A copper plate with a fair bit of rdx / tnt behind it would also work. 1 pound accelerated to mach 4 or so should do about enough damage to anything to make it leak.
        • Your arguement assumes that an attacker happens to know the time and place, and vehicles containing the nuclear material. Let's assume that somehow they do.

          Having said that, there are standard safetly precautions set for transport of hazardous materials, such as:

          n Type B packages for materials with the highest levels of radioactivity--such as used nuclear fuel. They are designed to provide radioactive protection and nuclear safety under accident conditions. These packages must survive simulated accid
          • Of course, it would be rather hard to hide a big ass convoy or even a single truck. As I understand it, these containers aren't exactly easy to disguise as they are a bit bigger than the standard trailers.
            Also, they will be going a great distance to a known destination, so it should be pretty easy to figure out where they will be, etc.

            Also, all these tests are assuming "accident conditions", being broadsided, etc by large objects, not tiny objects at high speed (i.e. bullets, metal plates accelerated to ma

        • Re:Ironically... (Score:4, Informative)

          by pyrrhonist ( 701154 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @09:26PM (#9097044)
          50 BMG will penetrate damn near anything and will have a nice range to boot.

          Okay, I've read a couple of your responses, and you really need to check your facts [nmcco.com] before posting.

          Other Sandia tests evaluated a terrorist attack, subjecting a container to a device
          30 times more powerful than a typical anti-tank weapon. The test resulted in a quarter-inch-diameter hole through the primary containment wall. The NRC estimates that the hole produced by the test would have resulted in the release of less than 10 grams--one-third of an ounce-- of used fuel. The container's protective shielding would prevent a large release of radiation.
          So basically, a 50 caliber projectile won't do shit to these containers.

          • I was talking about the driver compartment in order to stop the vehicle. Not the actual container. I could of have been a bit more clear about that, my bad.
            • Ok, well first off, don't think there isn't plenty of material that won't stop a 50. I imagine that the driver could be sheilded. However, ultmately, what is that going to do? You stop the truck to what? Get killed by the guards? You think that these things WON'T be protected by armed guards?
            • I was talking about the driver compartment in order to stop the vehicle.

              What are they going to do after they stop the vehicle? It's escorted by armed guards, and tracked by satellite [doe.gov].

          • Re:Ironically... (Score:5, Funny)

            by Jardine ( 398197 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @10:33PM (#9097405) Homepage
            So basically, a 50 caliber projectile won't do shit to these containers.

            Perhaps if we used some sort of nuclear weapon to break open the container.

            What we'll need is materials to build a nuclear weapon, then we can move it by truck close enough to the convoy. Once in position, we can set off the nuclear weapon, breaking open the container of spent fuel!

            Then all we'd have to do is gather up the spent fuel and we'd have the makings of a dirty bomb. It's foolproof!
      • This isn't necessarily true... In fact there was an article and discussion in Bruce Schneier's cryptogram newsletter discussing this and some varied responses recently about the differences between a single expensive safe and lots of inexpensive ones... The results are not always intuitive.
      • I agree with this. I was going to use an eggs in basket analogy, with the distributed storage as a hold over from the cold war. To boot, not only does centralization reduce the failure points, it also reduces costs, so you can put more dollars per security measure but still have it cost less than a distributed system.

  • Transportation? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) * <(moc.ocnafets) (ta) (todhsals)> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:33PM (#9096499) Homepage Journal
    Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads ... and transported thousands of miles across America's vulnerable road system, which are vulnerable to terrorist attack.

    Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

  • Hafnium bombs? You're worried about hafnium bombs? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Behrooz ( 302401 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:34PM (#9096507)
    Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast

    Talk about going off-topic. Isotope bombs, which are not even feasible at this point and require a pretty massive technological base to even think about playing with, really aren't what we should be worried about regarding storage of nuclear research materials. In fact, I'd say the nuclear materials and research inside the US are probably better locked-down than just about anywhere else.

    Hell, the most-likely nuclear terrorism scenario in my estimation is someone purchasing a radiation-therapy machine and randomly zapping people with lethal doses from inside a truck-mounted setup. Given a cool million to purchase some used medical equipment, you don't even need to try to steal nuclear material from federal facilities.
    • "Isotope bombs, which are not even feasible at this point and require a pretty massive technological base "

      I do believe isotope bombs are quite feasible indeed [portchicago.org]. It is the isoMER bomb which I posted a story [slashdot.org] on that is now in question. Nuclear isotopes contain varying numbers of neutrons with identical numbers of protons in the nucleus. Nuclear ISOMERS contain the same of both but have excitiations of the spins of the nucleons' constituant neutrons and protons.
    • Isotope bombs, which are not even feasible at this point and require a pretty massive technological base to even think about playing with

      A few years ago, someone said "650KB ought to be enough for anybody" (for off-topic discussion, see more of this here [thocp.net]). We are now in an age where sending stuff to mars is about to become a routine exercise to the governments. So, we are not far away from building a golfball-sized hafnium bomb that would cause rather devastating effects. It's time for all the nuclear-p

      • A few years ago, someone said "650KB ought to be enough for anybody"

        First, no, he didn't. That's not even what he was purported to say. Depending on who you ask, it was either 64K or 640K, both of which were common at some point. 650K never was, so at least get your inaccurate quotes right. I'd be willing to bet that you've never even seen a computer with less than a Meg of memory. Second, what does that have to do with anything? It's not like a bunch of rogue terrorists got together and breached th

    • It's not off-topic... as long as the topic is "irrational fears"

    • Free Radiation Therapy Machines in 3rd World (Score:5, Interesting)

      by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:10PM (#9096699)
      Hell, the most-likely nuclear terrorism scenario in my estimation is someone purchasing a radiation-therapy machine and randomly zapping people with lethal doses from inside a truck-mounted setup. Given a cool million to purchase some used medical equipment, you don't even need to try to steal nuclear material from federal facilities.

      It's worse that you think. A number of years ago (maybe 10 to 20?), the radiation detectors at Los Alamos went off when a delivery of patio furniture passed by. Turns out the cast iron in the furniture contained Cobalt-60. Tracing the shipment back, they found that the furniture had been made in Mexico from scrap metal. Someone in Mexico had sold a radiation therapy machine as scrap.


      • > It's worse that you think. A number of years ago (maybe 10 to 20?), the radiation detectors at Los Alamos went off when a delivery of patio furniture passed by. Turns out the cast iron in the furniture contained Cobalt-60. Tracing the shipment back, they found that the furniture had been made in Mexico from scrap metal. Someone in Mexico had sold a radiation therapy machine as scrap.

        Great for tanning both sides at once, eh?

      • Essentially all steel contains a measurable amount of cobalt-60. It can come from "orphaned" sources, as in this case, but it's also introduced intentionally by many steel mills. In order to monitor the integrity of the bricks that line the furnace, it is a common technique to embed small cobalt-60 sources in them. When you stop seeing the 2.5 MeV gamma radiation, you know it's time for new bricks. (I understand that many mills have switched to a different monitoring technique involving lasers, but ther
      • Ahh, but radioactive patio furniture is a significantly lower-level source, isn't intentionally lethal, and emits continuously... making it a lot harder to hide and a lot easier to find even if someone doesn't want you to, especially with the growing spread of radiation detectors all over the place.

        On the other hand, radiation therapy accelerators are capable of delivering lethal doses in an astonishingly short time while remaining inert the rest of the time-- do a google search on "Therac-25 Accidents [vt.edu]" an

  • The real question is .... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by chris_sawtell ( 10326 ) * on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:41PM (#9096534) Journal
    What are the other nuclear powers doing?

    To the powers that be in: China; France; India; Israel; Pakistan; Russia; The United Kingdom; and the United States.

    What else are you doing to prevent the unthinkable happening?

    A serious question to which the rest of the world expects a serious answer.

    • And the real answer is... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:04PM (#9096660)

      No matter how much you do, some fraction of your vital infrastructure will always be vulnerable to a sufficiently powerful and well-organised attack. If you protected every critical piece of infrastructure in a country -- all the power stations, water supplies, transport routes, government hubs, etc. -- then you'd expend far more resources than are practical on security, and having so many people in the system would cause weak links anyway.

      Ultimately, you can't prevent an unknown enemy from committing an unknown act forever. All you can do is your best to stop it (and that's better done starting from intelligence rather than raw defensive power at every vulnerable point) and your best to clean up the mess (e.g., by having back-up generators in key places like hospitals in case the power does go out).

      A more serious question that I'd pose, given the above harsh-but-true assessment, is how much could quality of life in general be improved if all the resources being diverted in the name of "fighting terrorism" were invested in hospitals, schools, etc. in the first place.

      • A more serious question that I'd pose, given the above harsh-but-true assessment, is how much could quality of life in general be improved if all the resources being diverted in the name of "fighting terrorism" were invested in hospitals, schools, etc. in the first place.

        Sir, I would ask you to think about what you've asked here. Certainly you would agree that we need to defend the country against militants of any sort, yes? (This includes terrorists, armies, etc.) I don't believe that the best use of

        • Certainly you would agree that we need to defend the country against militants of any sort, yes?

          As much as is possible, of course. But it's a game of dimishing returns. And notice that a lot of the most successful crime-reducing measures in recent times haven't involved more policemen with bigger guns. They've involved getting into the communities, finding out what the real motivations are and addressing them. Often, that's as simple as providing a worthwhile education for the children and teenagers so

  • IP on one side, "security" on another (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Thinkit4 ( 745166 ) * on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:43PM (#9096545)
    Well you can't launch model rockets now without a permit because of "national security". You can't use a computer because of "intellectual property". From libertarian we come, to libertarian we'll come back! Soon we'll listen to the latest audio files on our computer while tinkering with the latest thing that makes a big boom.

  • fearmongering (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jacquesm ( 154384 ) <j@NoSpam.ww.com> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:43PM (#9096547) Homepage
    All this stuff about 'securing our nuclear stockpiles' is so much hogwash. The stockpiles are pretty secure as it is, it would take more than just a few guys with guns to get to anything that's bomb grade. IN THE US. The really dangerous stockpiles are the ones that have little or no oversight at all or where oversight was only added after the horse already left the barn. Countries like, but not neccesarily limited to Pakistan, Iran, former USSR, India and so on are far more of a risk in this respect than the US. In Africa there are natural nuclear reactors where the 'yellowcake' can be dug up by a bunch of determined guys with shovels and a lack of desire to live. It wouldn't take a whole lot to pack a container full of this stuff, a timing mechanism and a bunch of diesel for a very large dirty bomb that can be set of by remote in a shipping yard or so. Not that it would kill a lot of people, but it could shut down a major harbour for a long long time. Of course the countries that are most likely to be at risk are also partners in the so called war on terrorism so we can't really offend them. And when that islamic coup happens in Pakistan (anybody have any odds on that ?) it will be *far* too late to get moving. Nuclear proliferation has gone way too far to put the genie back in the bottle unless there will be a genuine international effort to round up *ALL* the fissionable material (including that in the US) and to place it under international (UN) oversight. The current reasoning seems to be that only 'democratic' countries can have it, unless you manage to join the nuclear club in secret because then you become untouchable. And those are the real weapons of mass distruction we're talking about, not some imagined gas cannisters or non existant Iraqi bombs...

    • Re:fearmongering (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:08PM (#9096690)
      Countries like, but not neccesarily limited to Pakistan, Iran, former USSR, India and so on are far more of a risk in this respect than the US.

      You think India -- the world's largest democracy (in terms of population) and a generally civilised and well-educated society -- is a security risk because they (may) have nuclear weapons? Would it be inappropriate at this point to remind you which is the only country in the world ever to have dropped one for real, and also the country that supplied a rather large proportion of the serious firepower so-called rogue states now possess?

      • Re:fearmongering (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jacquesm ( 154384 ) <j@NoSpam.ww.com> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:15PM (#9096720) Homepage
        India and Pakistan have been on the brink of an all out war for quite a while now (the Kashmir conflict). Yes, they are a risk. More so than say France, Brittain, the US or China. Probably less so than the former USSR but a risk none theless.


        Your point about the US supplying a large proportion of the serious firepower that so called rogue states now possess is well taken, in fact historically the US seems to have most of its trouble from places where they have meddled in the past. If not for the Afghan debacle a CIA operative called Usama Bin Laden would never have gotten as far off the ground as he did. But then we'd have had a - god forbid - communist Afghanistan (for about 8 years or so until the USSR imploded). See Iran, Korea, Iraq (ask the British about that one) and so on.

      • Re:fearmongering (Score:4, Informative)

        by shadowbearer ( 554144 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @11:17PM (#9097608) Homepage Journal
        You think India -- the world's largest democracy (in terms of population) and a generally civilised and well-educated society -- is a security risk because they (may) have nuclear weapons?

        May have??

        India conducted it's first nuclear test in 1974 [mtholyoke.edu].

        SB

        • 1974 was a long time ago. India and Pakistan both claim to have conducted underground nuclear tests much more recently than that. Strangely, none of my friends in the world-class geophysics lab down the road detected the side effects their instruments would show on an unmissable scale had such an event really occurred, however.

          It wouldn't surprise me if India did have significant quantities of weapons-grade materials, or indeed if they had weapons ready to fire, but you shouldn't believe everything you re

          • 1998 wasn't all that long ago:

            http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/brief16.ht m
            (India and Pakistan nukes - lot more than just "claims")

            http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/17B_Thakur .h tml
            (India's "stability")

            http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/onefive.htm
            (tests aren't "unmissable" )

            Considering the Islamic extremist terrorism activity in India/Pakistan that I've been hearing so much about in the last year or so, I'd hardly consider the countries "stable"; remember, too, that their "cold war

    • Re:fearmongering (Score:4, Interesting)

      by davejenkins ( 99111 ) <slashdot@da[ ]enkins.com ['vej' in gap]> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:33PM (#9096796) Homepage
      round up *ALL* the fissionable material (including that in the US) and to place it under international (UN) oversight.

      The UN?!?!? Please no!

      These are the same assholes that grafted billions in the Oil-for-food programme, and put Syria on the Human Rights Commission. What a joke organization. I wouldn't trust them with anything more lethal than a police baton and a water cannon.

      Equivalancy among nation-states is an illusion. Not all states have equal power, resources, nor equitable governments. As such, defaulting to the UN is rarely a solution.
      • --Oh come on now, really -- the water cannon is a bit much. All they should be allowed to have is a police baton and a silly hat.

        --Oh, and sunblock. Definitely sunblock. ;b
    • The Curve of Binding Energy [amazon.com] covers many of the same problems from the 70s, so disreguarding these problems as "hogwash" would be irresponcible. From what I remember from reading it, and what pops up in the mass media (like this wired article) it seems as if many of the warnings that popped up over 30 years ago were disreguarded. Measures that might have been put into place, like many other aspects of the govenrment, have simply fallen behind the times due to lack of concern, lack of money or both.

      While yo

    • Re:fearmongering (Score:2, Informative)

      by 1Oman ( 308666 )
      Yeah we all know that nuclear power plant security is infallible. But wait [go.com] maybe its not. But I'm sure they will find this stuff or maybe not [capitalnews9.com].
      And then there is always this [cbsnews.com] to worry about.

  • The 2nd Amendment guarantees my right to nukes. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by g0hare ( 565322 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:43PM (#9096549)
    Everybody should have one. Then we'd all be safe.
    • In a 1946 essay entitled "You and the Atom Bomb," George Orwell wrote:

      Considering how likely we all are to be blown to pieces by it within the next five years, the atomic bomb has not roused so much discussion as might have been expected. The newspapers have published numerous diagrams, not very helpful to the average man, of protons and neutrons doing their stuff.... But curiously little has been said, at any rate, in print, about the question that is of most urgent interest to all of us, namely, "How di

  • End of the world (Score:4, Funny)

    by whiteranger99x ( 235024 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:47PM (#9096565) Journal
    At the rate we're going, the whole world will end up much like THIS [albinoblacksheep.com] if we're not careful :P

  • Not "nuclear" (Score:3, Funny)

    by MightyPez ( 734706 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @07:55PM (#9096608)
    Nuculure. Use some strategery, morans.

  • As far as powerplants go.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dfenstrate ( 202098 ) * <dfenstrate@gmaiEULERl.com minus math_god> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:05PM (#9096667)
    Some time ago, post september 11th, the Nuclear Regulatory commission decreed that the security at nuclear power plants was not enough, and that it should be increased.

    Ok, that's all well and fine, as much as I hate the nanny state, that's what they're there for, and we have to deal with it.

    So, these security upgrades, required by the NRC if we are to continue generating nuclear power, where initially scheduled to be done by this coming october.

    This was a reasonable timeframe at the initial order.

    Except every month or two, they'd increase or change the theoretical attack our security would have to be able to repel.

    And then never move the completion date back to allow time to make adjustments for their continual meddling.

    So now, at my plant, we have a huge security capital project that needs to be done in 5 months, because the NRC just finished up their requirements, finally, two months ago. The engineering and construction firms obviously need time to design a system to meet the NRC standards, and prepare for it's construction.

    So basically we're spending 15 million dollars on a rush job because the NRC has no fucking clue how businesses work, and allow no time adjustment for their indecision.

    And the funny part is that even if a team of terrorists got past our already substantial security (both physical and personell), they'd have no fucking clue how to cause any damage that would extend beyond the plant or spread radiation to the public- figuring out such a thing requires years of studying the plant's most intimate workings.

    Fuckin NRC.
    • >they'd have no fucking clue how to cause any damage that would extend beyond the plant or spread radiation to the public- figuring out such a thing requires years of studying the plant's most intimate workings.

      Do you mean "spread radiation", or do you mean spread a dangerous amount of radiation?

      The operators at Three Mile Island were able to release radiation outside the plant and cause a panic without even trying.
      • Yes, thank you for making me clarify.

        They did release radiation to the public, but it was such a ridiculously small amount that the projected increase in cancer deaths was 0.6- and thousands of people where potentially exposed.

        There have been lawsuits, of course, but all thrown out of court because of a complete inability to prove that the accident caused any harm.

        Oh, and the operators did try- well, not to release radiation, but they shut down a number of accident mitigation systems because they misunde
  • It's only a matter of time before someone in the government claims that the rationale for maintaining a stockpile of nuclear weapons is to provide us with a deterrent against terrorists who might steal weapons from that stockpile and use them against us.

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rura Penthe ( 154319 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:11PM (#9096702)
    "Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast."

    I don't know where to begin with this. We should be more afraid because of technology we don't even have yet (and may never have) might get into the hands of terrorists? Do they have some massive R&D lab hidden in the mountains near Pakistan? And what does a theoretical isotope bomb have to do with our current nuclear stockpile?

  • On Site Suicide Bomb (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No need to steal anything. A Big Bang in the storage facility would shut it down for many, many years. If you're after terror this would be pretty effective, especially if coupled with a DDOS, or even more dangerous, hack attack against the major financial/news sites. If you could manage to blow something up in Navada with the wind blowing towards Las Vagas you could cause a pretty large panic. In fact, you wouldn't even need to cause an explosion, a War of the Worlds type of incident caused by disrupting c
  • "Its pronounced 'nukular', Lisa; 'nukular'..."

  • An interesting story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Digitus1337 ( 671442 ) <lk_digitus AT hotmail DOT com> on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:29PM (#9096778) Homepage
    My family and I were on vacation in the north-eastern United States a couple of years back. My dad wanted to check out the Three Mile Island vistor center, as he's a bionuclear physicist and is really geeked up over that kind of a thing. We had one of those Hertz rental cars with the GPS helper, so we checked and the visitor center was on there, so we told it to take us there. We pulled in where it told us to, into a street that wasn't much bigger than a driveway. Within a matter of moments we were boxed in by a few Humvees (not the street-legal models, the big should-have-treads things), and have guns pointed at us from all around. We're told very persistantly to slowly get out of the car and put our hands on the hood. We did so, they took our pictures, ran our fingerprints, called in two trucks full of troops to help the obviously overpowered platoon that was trying to keep a family of four under tight watch. Safeties were off, we were potential enemies. After an hour or so (and a search of us and the car) they let us go, told us to never came back, but were nice enough to point us in the direction of the -real- visitor's center. It was closed for the day -_-.
    • As I understand it, this is the first tier of security for sensitive sites (even before getting to any physical barriers). This is why I think even if there were centralized storage of nuclear material/weapons, that the risk if general contamination by ground vehicle bombing is very low. Also there are SUAs (special use airspace) labelled prohibited which do not allow ANY unauthorized travel.
      • The Pentagon and WTC all have no-fly-zones, and look how that went... If no-one cares that several big passenger planes takes a 180 mid-flight and heads straight for said no-fly-zone with the transponder off and no radio contact, how can we (or _you_ since I don't live in the US) expect that a small Cessna or similar plane flying below radar coverage, carrying a small bomb, won't make it to it's destination? A nice destination would be the spent-fuel rod storage facilities at Indian Point or another plant..
        • Except, now the airforce has the right to do shit in our airspace when that stuff is happening.

          Whether they try some fancy mid-air take-over special-ops godlike coolness, or just blow the plane to kingdom come, those no-fly zones are gonna start working soon.
        • Remeber the single engine plane crash into a skyscraper in Florida? [cnn.com]
          It didn't do that much damage. Those things are light. So you add a bomb, lets say you load it overweight, against how many feet of steel reinforced concrete?

        • A nice destination would be the spent-fuel rod storage facilities at Indian Point or another plant... Blowing the wall up, releasing the water. Instant overheating and subsequent fire....

          I think not. Yes, spent fuel assemblies release heat for a long time, but by the time you get them out of the core and into a storage facility the output is not high enough to cause "instant overheating and subsequent fire." I expect you'd have to provide a powerful explosion or a large/hot fire if you wanted to produc

    • Wow. What a bunch of Jack booted thugs.

      At my powerplant, there's a manned guardhouse with a few jersey barriers you have to weave around before you get anywhere security even remotely cares about. You come in unexpected, 999 times out of 1000, the guard politely turns you around at the gaurdhouse and gives you the best directions he can.

      If you go barrelling past the guardhouse (no gates at the outer perimeter of the site) then you'd get that kind of response. Of course, only people who where trouble- cert

  • Nuclear weapons are just too much hassle... (Score:3, Informative)

    by AchilleTalon ( 540925 ) on Saturday May 08, 2004 @08:57PM (#9096883) Homepage
    given what you can do with chemical and bacterial weapons much more cheaper to produce with ready available chemical products or some bacterian material you can steal much more easily and so much difficult to track down.

  • Latest cryptome item is Eyeballing Los Alamos National Laboratory [cryptome.org].
  • The material that in not being properly guarded in NOT lowlevel waste. It is highly-enriched, bomb-grade uranium. Something like 400 metric tons in Oak Ridge (Y12) alone. It does not take a genius to detonate this material. It doesn't even require an implosion. The uranium bomb (little boy) droped on Japan in WWII was a gun assembly weapon. It fired a conical bullet of enriched uranium down a six foot barrel and into a target with a matching hole. It worked quite nicely. Anyone with a few 10 pound blo

  • Hafnium Bomb. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ripragged ( 714686 ) <raymeyers13@mac.com> on Sunday May 09, 2004 @02:09AM (#9098386) Homepage
    The most important thing we could do about nuclear security is to educate the public on the real dangers of nuclear radiation. Radiation in large doses is dangerous. The most likely dirty bombs will not result in large doses, but mass panic. The panic will be far more dangerous than the radiation in most cases. I work with radioactive material for a living. I don't know the ins and outs of a Hafnium Bomb, but I know that once the radioactive material is dispersed by an explosion, it starts being less of a hazard immediately. Panic is the most dangerous aspect for those not in the immediate vicinity of any detonation. Increased security is important, but it is harder to wreak terror in an informed group. email me at raymeyers13@mac.com
  • bureaucrat1: can't have all that dangerous material spread all over the place - we'll put it all in a single, well protected place.

    bureaucrat2: can't tell Utah that we're putting dangerous stuff there - tell them it's a replacement for Fort Knox

    bureaucrat1: Hey - I love it!

    time passes - large, iron clad, secure bunker-style building with lots of military and police all around is built in Lindon. Stuff starts arriving from all over and put inside

    bureaucrat1: now it's all in one place, we can rest easy.

    r

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