I'm not one to fear-monger, but doesn't this have the ability to become a dirty bomb fairly easily?
I mean, that's if it has real nuclear material in it, and even if it doesn't, I'm sure whatever it is using as a catalyst isn't safe if it were to be used in nefarious ways.
Dirty Bombs are made with highly radioactive material from fission reactors (nuclear waste, fuel rods, etc).
Lithium-6 is not highly radioactive so it wouldn't likely be used in a Dirty Bomb.
This is the reason FUSION power would be so important in the future. #1 the waste from Fusion reactors has much shorter radioactive half lives. #2 the products from Fusion can't be used to make nuclear weapons. #3 Fusion would be cleaner and safer provided we had the technology to enclose the reaction under tremendous heat/pressure.
Lithium-6 is only in there in place of control rods, basically so absorb Neutrons and control the reaction rate.
Its a nuclear reactor, therefore has to contain nuclear material and thus can be made into a dirty bomb. You don't need weapons grade stuff in it as you use conventional explosives in a dirty bomb and the nuclear material is a payload is it were.
Oh and @ Flashpoint in particular, Fusion doesn't use any radioactive materials at all and doesn't produce any radioactive products, rather than products with shorter half-lives.
When you can't readily buy Nuclear material and a Reactor, and people like you fear mongering that it can be used in nefarious ways, the terrorists have Won. ;-)
Thats odd, Flashpoint's response to my message appeared down under Randy's comment a few down (yet I got an email about about the reply, I didn't think you could reply to replies, how did you manage that? :S) Anyway, I'll keep it in this thread.
Yes Fusion produces waste, but that waste happens to be Helium, a completely inert gas. Pretty much as safe as you can get.
Don’t blame the population for being terrified out of their minds from the "Invisible Terrorist" scattered through America, aka “Sleeper Cells”... Blame the Government and the Mass Media.
@Flash Fusion Reaction needs High Pressure and Temperature to take place. Comparable to Sun's core. This kind of Pressure and Temperature is humanly impossible to recreate. In a Fusion Reactor or a Fusion Bomb (The H Bomb) First, a Fission Reaction is initialted which produces the required Temp and Pressure. Hydrogen atoms are then introducted and "secondary" Fusion Reaction takes place. Fusion Reactions are much complicated and much more cannot be controlled as easily as fission reactions. This is the reason why most of nuclear power plants are Fission based. Additionally, a Fussion Reaction is as much radioactive as a fission reaction because of 1. The initial fission reaction and large amount of Gamma and high energy radiation produced. Lastly, Dirty nukes are not dangerous because of radiation but because of their destructive power. For EG a so called Suitcase Nuke carries enough firepower, comparable to 10 to 15 truckloads of TNT or Dynamite.
Fusion is produced in dozens of laboratories worldwide daily. The temperatures, pressures and magnetic fields used are NOT impossible to create. In fact the most advanced fusion research reactors produce temperatures and pressures that are 100 times higher than the core of the sun. They also use magnetic fields that are about 10 times stronger than the suns.
In addition, fission is NOT used to start these reactions. Only on weapons are small fission bombs used to start the fusion reaction. In the modern fusion reactor the radiation produced is Alpha, Beta and Gamma. The alpha and beta over time cause the reactor itself to become a low level Beta emitter with a half life of around 5 years. It's expected that Fusion reactors that are past their life and disassembled will need to be stored for around 20 years before they can be scrapped and recycled safely.
First, there are no functioning fusion based power plants in the world,
Learn what a Dirty Bomb is before you talk, another name for such a device is a radiological dispersal device or RDD.
The purpose of these devices is to spread radioactive dust throughout an area. These devices use byproducts or Spent material from nuclear reactors such as the attempted Caesium-137 bomb in Chechnya.
No fission takes place in a Dirty Bomb, the common misconception that these are fission based weapons is because of the idiots in hollywood...
Suitcase nukes on the other hand are just very small nuclear weapons, the closest thing to a true suitcase nuke that the government has ever admitted to producing is the W54 warhead which while not small enough to fit in a suitcase, could quite easily fit in a backpack. Such devices are very low yield compared to modern large scale nuclear devices.
Heres a picture of such a weapon inside a projectile attached to a large portable rifle used to fire it:
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I'm not one to fear-monger, but doesn't this have the ability to become a dirty bomb fairly easily?
I mean, that's if it has real nuclear material in it, and even if it doesn't, I'm sure whatever it is using as a catalyst isn't safe if it were to be used in nefarious ways.
Not necessarily, just because it has radioactive material doesn't make it weapons grade.
Dirty Bombs are made with highly radioactive material from fission reactors (nuclear waste, fuel rods, etc).
Lithium-6 is not highly radioactive so it wouldn't likely be used in a Dirty Bomb.
This is the reason FUSION power would be so important in the future.
#1 the waste from Fusion reactors has much shorter radioactive half lives.
#2 the products from Fusion can't be used to make nuclear weapons.
#3 Fusion would be cleaner and safer provided we had the technology to enclose the reaction under tremendous heat/pressure.
Imagine the whole apartment's residences going impotent hahahahahha
Lithium-6 is only in there in place of control rods, basically so absorb Neutrons and control the reaction rate.
Its a nuclear reactor, therefore has to contain nuclear material and thus can be made into a dirty bomb. You don't need weapons grade stuff in it as you use conventional explosives in a dirty bomb and the nuclear material is a payload is it were.
Oh and @ Flashpoint in particular, Fusion doesn't use any radioactive materials at all and doesn't produce any radioactive products, rather than products with shorter half-lives.
When you can't readily buy Nuclear material and a Reactor, and people like you fear mongering that it can be used in nefarious ways, the terrorists have Won. ;-)
Thats odd, Flashpoint's response to my message appeared down under Randy's comment a few down (yet I got an email about about the reply, I didn't think you could reply to replies, how did you manage that? :S) Anyway, I'll keep it in this thread.
Yes Fusion produces waste, but that waste happens to be Helium, a completely inert gas. Pretty much as safe as you can get.
Tritium is radioactive. It has a 12 year half-life which isn't bad but it is still radioactive.
When Lithium-6 catches those neutrons a by product is Tritium which can be fed back into the reactor.
While its not plutonium, there are still radioactive elements in a fusion reactor.
@ Randy
Don’t blame the population for being terrified out of their minds from the "Invisible Terrorist" scattered through America, aka “Sleeper Cells”... Blame the Government and the Mass Media.
Also... does anybody even know what a dirty bomb is and how much damage it can do?
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs.html
@Flash
Fusion Reaction needs High Pressure and Temperature to take place. Comparable to Sun's core. This kind of Pressure and Temperature is humanly impossible to recreate.
In a Fusion Reactor or a Fusion Bomb (The H Bomb) First, a Fission Reaction is initialted which produces the required Temp and Pressure. Hydrogen atoms are then introducted and "secondary" Fusion Reaction takes place. Fusion Reactions are much complicated and much more cannot be controlled as easily as fission reactions. This is the reason why most of nuclear power plants are Fission based.
Additionally, a Fussion Reaction is as much radioactive as a fission reaction because of 1. The initial fission reaction and large amount of Gamma and high energy radiation produced.
Lastly, Dirty nukes are not dangerous because of radiation but because of their destructive power. For EG a so called Suitcase Nuke carries enough firepower, comparable to 10 to 15 truckloads of TNT or Dynamite.
@indiatech,
Fusion is produced in dozens of laboratories worldwide daily. The temperatures, pressures and magnetic fields used are NOT impossible to create. In fact the most advanced fusion research reactors produce temperatures and pressures that are 100 times higher than the core of the sun. They also use magnetic fields that are about 10 times stronger than the suns.
In addition, fission is NOT used to start these reactions. Only on weapons are small fission bombs used to start the fusion reaction. In the modern fusion reactor the radiation produced is Alpha, Beta and Gamma. The alpha and beta over time cause the reactor itself to become a low level Beta emitter with a half life of around 5 years. It's expected that Fusion reactors that are past their life and disassembled will need to be stored for around 20 years before they can be scrapped and recycled safely.
Not at all, all that Lithium in the air will make us happy as clams... weeeeeeeeeeee!
@IndiaTech
First, there are no functioning fusion based power plants in the world,
Learn what a Dirty Bomb is before you talk, another name for such a device is a radiological dispersal device or RDD.
The purpose of these devices is to spread radioactive dust throughout an area. These devices use byproducts or Spent material from nuclear reactors such as the attempted Caesium-137 bomb in Chechnya.
No fission takes place in a Dirty Bomb, the common misconception that these are fission based weapons is because of the idiots in hollywood...
Suitcase nukes on the other hand are just very small nuclear weapons, the closest thing to a true suitcase nuke that the government has ever admitted to producing is the W54 warhead which while not small enough to fit in a suitcase, could quite easily fit in a backpack. Such devices are very low yield compared to modern large scale nuclear devices.
Heres a picture of such a weapon inside a projectile attached to a large portable rifle used to fire it:
http://xmb.stuffucanuse.com/xmb/viewthread.php?action=attachment&tid=4518&pid=13152