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Plutonium Shipment to France on the Way 97

Posted by michael from the watch-out-for-icebergs dept.
duesi writes "According to BBC News a British vessel is carrying 140 kg of weapons grade plutonium from the US to France to turn it into nuclear fuel. It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see that this is a dangerous thing... Similar shipments have happened before, for example in 1999 and 2002 but BBC writes that this is the first time weapon grade plutonium has been shipped ever."
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Plutonium Shipment to France on the Way More

Plutonium Shipment to France on the Way

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  • That IS dangerous... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GypC ( 7592 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @12:34PM (#10331008) Homepage Journal
    You never know when Islamist terrorists will take over one of those plutonium ships with one of their nuclear subs or aircraft carriers...

    Or disguise themselves as veteran British seamen and seize the bridge.

    • You never know when Islamist terrorists will take over one of those plutonium ships with one of their nuclear subs or aircraft carriers...

      I was just thinking, they must be carrying a packet of wire wool and a spare tin of paint to clean the charred,black,sooty smudge off the hull that the suicide bombers will leave when they crash their inflatable dinghy into the ship shouting, "Death to the Infidel! God is great!"

    • Or disguise themselves as veteran British seamen and seize the bridge.

      They'd be found out straight away. When it's their turn to make the tea, they'll get it wrong. You just can't fake proper tea.

    • I predict that terrorists will sneak aboard by disguising themselves as a rock band. From there, when all the officers, and the skeleton crew in in one place ready to boogie, the band overwhelms the crew and takes control of the ship. Fortunately, since the material is only 140kg, they need not go to the effort of producing a complex winching mechanism, they just pick up the suitcases, get back on the chopper, and fly away.

  • tell everyone! (Score:5, Funny)

    by alatesystems ( 51331 ) <chris&chrisbenard,net> on Thursday September 23, 2004 @12:34PM (#10331014) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, that's great, just tell everyone so they can go attack it. That's really smart. If I were the shipper or receiver, or any territory between which this parcel traveled, I would want it to be at least SOMEWHAT of a secret.

    Oh well. Security through obscurity is better than no security at all.

    Chris
    • I was thinking the exact same thing - security through obscurity is somewhat useful when the public doesn't actually need to know about the insecure event. What good reason is there to report this?
    • Yeah, that's great, just tell everyone so they can go attack it. That's really smart. If I were the shipper or receiver, or any territory between which this parcel traveled, I would want it to be at least SOMEWHAT of a secret.

      For all you or I know the shipment was complete three weeks ago and this news is just a smokescreen. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

    • Shh!!! (Score:2)

      by El ( 94934 )
      Obviously it's a honeypot designed to lure in terrorists so they can capture them! The actual plutonium is being delivered by a lorry driven through the chunnel...
    • Come on, this is the oldest trick in the book. They announce a big shipment of plutonium going out, when the boat is really just carrying some harmless lead. The real plutonium is meanwhile thrown in the back of an SUV and driven down the highway.
    • Granted the article says that there is not going to be a military convoy with these boats, but I'd lay money that there will probably be either a US destroyer and/or a US sub within a mile or two of this thing at all times. Considering the paranoia that is gripping the US leadership at this time, I can't imagine that they would let that much plutonium just float along unguarded, they just wouldn't anounce it. Also, if the boat is hijacked, you can bet that the US Navy, the British Navy, and probably a few

    • Yeah, that's great, just tell everyone so they can go attack it. That's really smart. If I were the shipper or receiver, or any territory between which this parcel traveled, I would want it to be at least SOMEWHAT of a secret.

      Oh well. Security through obscurity is better than no security at all.

      My guess is that it is a classic case of misdirection. You say "We're moving this nice chunk of plutonium on this ship here - look at all our heavy security" when in fact you've cut it all up in to small piece

  • Not the way I would do it (Score:5, Informative)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) * on Thursday September 23, 2004 @12:35PM (#10331030) Homepage Journal
    The critical mass of plutonium is 10 - 100 kg [hypertextbook.com]. (I assume weapons grade plutonium would be more towards the 10kg range).
    I would split it up into 5kg bars and do a few trips. If there is a crash or whatever it wouldn't go critical. And it's not enough for a bomb is someone nicked it.
    5kg / 19,816 kg/m^3 in cm^3 [google.com] is ~ 250cm^3 which is 5 by 5 by 10 cm.
    Pretty strange that the entire consignment is smaller than [google.com] a shuttle case [google.com].

    • Oops wrong link for the critical mass. It should be this one [fact-index.com]

    • 1st off just send it via nuke sub. After all they already have the security to keep people from taking the nukes so you add little risk.

      2nd I know 10kg of plutonium is not that large as it's basically as heavy as led. But your not going to ship it all in one container it's much much safer to ship in several containers than one large pile.
    • AFAIK, the plutonium is being transported as plutonium oxide rather than pure metal. I'd imagine that probably makes it difficult or impossible to achieve criticality, but then I know nothing very much about nuclear weapons.
    • With Plutonium, it burns in oxygen much like Magnesium does. To make a dirty bomb with weapons grade plutonium you don't need critical mass, or even for that matter technology- just shave the bar with a knife, mix the shavings with gunpowder, and use it as the warhead on a mortar. Set it off upwind of a city, and you've got the ultimate cheap terrorist neutron bomb.
      • Set it off upwind of a city, and you've got the ultimate cheap terrorist neutron bomb.

        Where are the neutrons coming from?

        • I think he was refering to the effect neutron bombs have on cities, the people are gone but the buildings are still there.
        • Where are the neutrons coming from?

          Sorry- misspoke, nutrons are higher energy. Should have said Alpha and Gamma Particle Bomb- though the design idea is the same, kill loads of people and leave the buildings intact. That was my intent when comparing it to the higher-energy-state neutron bombs- effects, not actual physics.
          • Sorry- misspoke

            :-)

            I think the danger from a dirty bomb is more likely to be contamination and ingestion by people, plants and animals of the radioactive substances. This would lead to a long-term exposure to smallish amounts of radiation which, over many years, would result in an increase in cancer cases (and therefore deaths).

            Because the legal thresholds for what counts as "contamination" are very low, such a weapon would render large areas uninhabitable. I for one certainly wouldn't want to live somewhe

            • I think the danger from a dirty bomb is more likely to be contamination and ingestion by people, plants and animals of the radioactive substances. This would lead to a long-term exposure to smallish amounts of radiation which, over many years, would result in an increase in cancer cases (and therefore deaths).

              Depends on how much, and what the wind distribution is- igestion by people once burnt can be acomplished by large amounts of plutonium oxide ash in the atmosphere- it's still radioactive.

              Because th
            • The primary real danger from a dirty bomb (outside of the immediate blast radius) is that the populace panics in their haste to get away.

              Big scared crowds tend to break things, trample one another, and lose their normal respect for things like charity towards their fellow human beings, not to mention law, property, and traffic regulations.

              Plus it gives all the assholes an excuse to drive their Hummers on the sidewalk and over your lawn.
      • The Pu in question has already been converted to plutonium oxide; there is nothing to burn, and it is extremely stable.
      • actually Plutonium is not that radio active. It would make a very poor dirty bomb. The danger of from Pu is that is extermly toxic chemicaly. The stuff is very poisonous.
        It is not that it is so radioactive it is a heavy metal and is very toxic.
        Unless you have enough to make an atomic bomb. What people do not get is that if they do not stick it in reactor and use it for fuel it will just sit around for a few thousand years waiting for someone to make a bomb out of it.
        Converting it to electricity is the best

  • In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Thursday September 23, 2004 @12:37PM (#10331056)
    It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see that this is a dangerous thing...

    In other news, people do dangerous things every day... Like transport sulfuric acid in train tankers through residential neighborhoods. Some things are dangerous. That's life.

    Environmentalists say it presents a major terrorist target.

    Shouldn't environmentalists be worrying about the environment? How come the article doesn't say anything about *security experts* being worried about this? Couldn't they have found any?

    Greenpeace says the plutonium should be disposed of as nuclear waste to avoid the transport and proliferation risks.

    Right, because being stored in a hole somewere will be safer than reprocessing it and using it. We're much better off with all this weapons grade material sitting around than not existing....

    • That is the irony, isn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Engineer-Poet ( 795260 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @01:59PM (#10332252) Homepage Journal
      Greenpeace would rather have the plutonium "disposed of as nuclear waste" while it is still weapons-grade material, rather than truly converted to nuclear waste and made useless for fisson bombs first.

      This is one reason why, despite being an environmentalist, I have little use for today's environmental "movement". The groups who go to great efforts to paint themselves green turn out to be watermelons.

      • This is one reason why, despite being an environmentalist, I have little use for today's environmental "movement". The groups who go to great efforts to paint themselves green turn out to be watermelons.

        :-)

      • It's clear what the unspoken meaning is though. They're throwing out red herrings to inderectly support their anti-nuclear power agenda. They don't directly care about potential terrorist threats, they are just anti energy consumption. People like this aren't really environmentalists. Their goal isn't truly to protect the environment, but to enforce a particular lifestyle on others. The members of these organizations have either bought into that policy, are essentially cattle following the group, are horrib
        • they are just anti energy consumption. People like this aren't really environmentalists.

          What? I'm anti energy consumption. That doesn't mean I think we should all live in caves, just that we (Americans in particular) are extraordinarily wasteful with our energy. There is nothing wrong with being anti energy comsumption.

          If I were king I'd make incandescent lights illegal, replace all coal-fired power plants with those new pebble-bed reactors and build nuclear waste reprocessing plants all over so we ca

          • There is nothing wrong with being anti energy comsumption.

            There's a difference between being anti energy consumption, and being against wastefullness. You sound like you're the latter. Anyone truly anti-energy consumption would just kill themselves and all life since it takes energy consumption to live (or so says the laws of thermodynamics).
          • replace all coal-fired power plants with those new pebble-bed reactors

            That one comment makes you thousands of times more rational than the Greenpeace agenda would allow. When I describe them as anti-consumption, I mean that as them being in an entirely different league than where you are. Replacing incandescent lights wouldn't lower your quality of life enough to satisfy them. You shouldn't need that power plant, no matter what fires it.

  • Maybe not the first time. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EnronHaliburton2004 ( 815366 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @12:38PM (#10331063) Homepage Journal
    this is the first time weapon grade plutonium has been shipped ever

    It's the first time that the PUBLIC knows about it, but isn't necessarily the first time that weapon grade plutonium has been shipped.

    Big difference.

    • Re:Maybe not the first time. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @01:05PM (#10331442)
      It's the first time that the PUBLIC knows about it

      This is hardly the first time the public knew about it. Weapons grade plutonium is shipped about routinely; in weapons.

      We put on boats. We fly it around in aircraft. We haul it in trucks on public roads. Shipping significant quantities of weapons grade plutonium has been routine for over half a century.
    • Of course, if the environmentalists are so concerned, they have 2 options to explore.

      1. Leave all the plutonium on the nuclear warheads.. This is comming from decommissioned Nuclear missles, this should be seen as a good thing..

      2. Try to get the laws in the us changed so that we can do reprocessing here at home. Then we wouldn't have to ship our plutonium overseas. And we could refine and reuse our used uranium from our power generating nuclear reactors too. That sure would make Nevada happy. (less w

      • Reprocessing is the chemical separation of fissionables from fission products in spent fuel. None of that is going on; the fissionables came from the warheads in pure form (metal), have already been converted to ceramic (oxide), and could probably be mixed into partially-enriched uranium oxide and sintered into fuel pellets right here. I am aware of no legal barrier to this (which does not mean there is not one).

        I suspect that the real barrier is the refusal of publicity- and litigation-shy US nuclear plan

    • It's the first time that the PUBLIC knows about it, but isn't necessarily the first time that weapon grade plutonium has been shipped.

      Didn't the US ship some back in the 40's?

  • You gotta wonder what the brits got planned with those many TONNES of weapons grade PU they got in the bunker at Sellafield. That place aint no power plant!

    • Re:Sellafield (Score:4, Informative)

      by turgid ( 580780 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @01:03PM (#10331415) Journal
      You gotta wonder what the brits got planned with those many TONNES of weapons grade PU they got in the bunker at Sellafield. That place aint no power plant!

      Sellafield [sellafield.com] has never been a "power plant" it's just the ignorant, stupid, sensationalist British media and such that refer to it as one.

      Sellafield is an enormous site. I think that somewhere in the region of 15000 people work there on a daily basis.

      Sellafiled contains many things, including the ill-fated (criminally badly designed) Windscale reactors (whose sole purpose was plutonium production), the Calder Hall power station (mainly for providing site electricity and steam and the very first Magnox in the world, now shut down for good), various separation and containment facilities including the notorious "open pond", reprocessing facilities, the WAGR (Windscale Advanced Gas-cooler Reactor - absolutely brilliant piece of engineering, now decommissioning), the MOX Demonstration Facility, THORP (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant) plus a load of other stuff.

      Most of it isn't top secret and can be visited by the public. I went once on business. Very interesting. For those of us too young to remember the Cold War Era, it's absolutely incredible to see what's there.

      Try clicking on the above link. I think BNFL has now got a clue and realises that IE isn't the only browser in existance...:-)

  • Not necessary (Score:4, Funny)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @12:58PM (#10331331) Homepage
    Captain Malcolm Miller, head of international transport at BNFL, said they were the "safest sea transports" he had ever seen. A naval escort had not been requested and was not necessary, he added.

    Can you say "Doomed?"

  • Penny Henny (Score:4, Interesting)

    by b-baggins ( 610215 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @01:02PM (#10331398) Journal
    Unreal. I find it ironic that it's the French who actually have the (insert body part) to actually use nuclear power. Everyone else is just too terrified to even mention the word nuclear, unless it's to make fun of people mispronouncing it.
    • I second that. The French do have balls. How to beat terrorists? Use nuclear power! Kills two bird with one stone. No more dependency on oil plus less radio active matrial to go around!
    • The French are also the ones that built Iraq's nuclear reactor Osirak [wikipedia.org](which Israel blew up after Iran failed to.)

    • Re:Penny Henny (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RWerp ( 798951 )
      The French (and other nations opposing the invasion of Iraq) were not afraid of fighting terrorists (Germany, for example, sent a large contingent to Afghanistan) They just prefer to use other methods than blowing up a functioning state and inviting the terrorists from all over the world for a party.
      • I'd dispute that Iraq was a "functioning state": it was already quarantined from the rest of the world by UN-imposed sanctions. People in it were starving by the thousands because the government refused to accede to the demands that would have lifted the sanctions.

        That's still not necessarily sufficient reason to invade it without clear evidence of imminent danger; I don't disagree with your overall argument. There are plenty of more dysfunctional but non-oil-bearing states that we never raise a hand aga
      • Because we all know it's much better to have the terrorists attacking civilians at home than trained soldiers overseas.
        • What we have in Iraq is terrorists attacking non-US civilians. Much better? For the US, certainly. For the Iraqis --- I doubt it.

  • Whats the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Inominate ( 412637 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @01:14PM (#10331592)

    Both have a squad of armed police on board from the UK Atomic Energy Agency Constabulary.
    The ships carry naval cannons, have satellite monitoring, twin engines and hull protection.

    These are _armed_ ships, with armed security. An attack on them would require a warship. So north korea or iran or some other nation is going to attack and try and seize this ship? A couple terrorists with guns and a speedboat isn't going to cut it.

    I fail to see how this is any more dangerous than the transportation of any hazardous chemicals, or gold bullion, except it seems to be rather more secure.

    Hooray for sensationalist alarmist stories!
    • Exactly! The only real worry would be if they steered into a tropical storm/hurricane and somehow sank. Then there would be environmental issues.
    • A couple terrorists with guns and a speedboat isn't going to cut it.

      Unless they are the speedboats used to attack USS "Cole".
      • First, the USS Cole wasn't carrying nuclear material, so shooting at some dumb smuck getting close to the boat was not a top priority. They say the boat come in, they had their guns trained on the boat, they just didn't want to fire and potentially kill some foolish civilians trying to get a photo. I imagine that the people guarding the tanker will be far more liberal in their use of force.

        Second, the Cole didn't sink, and you can bet that what they are transporting in nuclear material on has a double ha

  • Bits from the article (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iamlucky13 ( 795185 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @02:10PM (#10332399)

    Environmentalists say it presents a major terrorist target.

    So let's protest to be sure it makes international news and everyone with an internet connection will know about it.

    Both have a squad of armed police on board from the UK Atomic Energy Agency Constabulary. The ships carry naval cannons, have satellite monitoring, twin engines and hull protection.

    "Ok Abdullah, here's the plan: we'll sneak in really quiet so they don't kill us with their 30mm cannons. We then kill a dozen armed guards, disable the automatic satellite tracking, then avoid all of the spy satellites, AWACS, aircraft carriers, and submarines from every infidel country that will be looking for us, and book it 5000 miles for home in this giant freighter. Are you done sharpening your boxcutter?"

    But critics say the shipment would be safer if carried on a naval frigate.

    I hope it's not the environmentalists making that criticism. The ships are owned by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). They were designed to safely and securely transport the stuff. It's not like you just want to toss the stuff in the dry storage on a frigate.

    Captain Malcolm Miller, head of international transport at BNFL, said they were the "safest sea transports" he had ever seen. A naval escort had not been requested and was not necessary, he added.

    He ain't worried, and he's in the middle of it.

    Irish Environment Minister Martin Cullen told the BBC that "any accident could have catastrophic effects." He wants assurances that they will not pass near Irish waters.

    An understandable concern, I suppose. I would expect that the fuel is sealed up in a pretty durable container that would contain any leaks long enough for recovery if the ships sank.

    Ireland, with New Zealand, Peru and Chile, is co-sponsoring a proposal at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seeking detailed information for coastal states on all movements of nuclear material in international waters.

    Seems like a good idea. It sounded, however, like BNFL was being pretty generous with relevant information on this trip, even though they don't have to.

    Greenpeace says the plutonium should be disposed of as nuclear waste to avoid the transport and proliferation risks.

    Ok, so it's unacceptable to burn it, move it, or leave it sitting in storage. Let's take Greenpeace's advice, then, and dispose of it as nuclear waste in a way that will keep it safe for 10000+ years in a chemically stable, glass form, in concrete and steel casks, a couple thousand feet underground in Yucca Moun...oh wait, they're protesting that also.

  • It's funny, the difference between what people in the [nuclear] industry know, and what many of you think you know.

  • All Pu is "weapons grade" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @10:24PM (#10337056) Homepage Journal
    As opposed to Uranium which is difficult to isotopically separate, essentially all Pu is
    usable in an implosion device, so simple chemical
    separation suffices. It is a bit trickier to
    detonate plutonium, because of the precise timing
    requirements for the compression charges, but the
    upside is that it's a lot easier to go thermonuclear,
    if you've got the tritium.
    • Mostly true, but different grades of plutonium have differing degrees of difficulty and yield for a nuclear weapon. Like uranium, the plutonium is not all one isotope. For a weapon you want a high amount of PU-239. From Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility [ccnr.org]:


      These other isotopes create some difficulties for design and fabrication of nuclear weapons.

      * First and most important, plutonium-240 has a high rate of spontaneous fission, meaning that the plutonium in the device will continually pr

    • All Pu is not weapon grade!
      Pu is obtained by neutron capture on 238U. The problem is that 239Pu(the usefull one) can also capture neutrons to produce 240Pu that is not as stable as 239Pu and produces unstable/unsafe weapons.
      So in order to produce weapon grade Pu the U must be left in a flux of neutrons long enough to produce 239Pu, but it must be taken out before the 240Pu starts to build up. That's why the IAEA inspectors in charge of nuclear non-proliferation track the loading and unloading of nuclear fu

  • What a waste (Score:3, Funny)

    by JediTrainer ( 314273 ) on Friday September 24, 2004 @09:25AM (#10339732)
    The shame. Wasting all that precious fuel on some nuclear reactors. I mean, how many DeLoreans [delorean.com] can we power with 140kg of plutonium?

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