The most powerfull weapon in the world. - Page 2

Digix · #31 (**permalink**) 09-May-2006, 02:40 PM

magnetic ion separation is known for ages.
looks I overestimated purity. actualy it is less, and depends on current.
99.9% would be too slow for practical purposes.
here is report about that tecnology
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Iraq...ISRI-95-03.pdf

Quote:

In theory, the isotopic separation of plutonium is a much less demanding
task than enrichment of uranium. For instance, as the initial Pu-239 content of
reactor-grade plutonium is over 70%, while the U-235 content of natural uranium
is only 0.7%, a plutonium enrichment plant will be about 100 times smaller
than an uranium enrichment plant of the same fissile material output. For example,
a straightforward calculation shows that using the electromagnetic separation
method, a single calutron with a beam current of less than 100 mA is sufficient to
produce 5 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium per year.

It is not for large scale production, you can hardly produce 1kg/per year at home, but if you dont mind paying alot for energy, than maibe you could separate few kg per year
you should understand why Pu is better than U for this separation.

it go even further it apears that it is possible to breed nuclear material using particle acelerator.

Van Rijn · #32 (**permalink**) 10-May-2006, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digix

magnetic ion separation is known for ages.
looks I overestimated purity. actualy it is less, and depends on current.
99.9% would be too slow for practical purposes.
here is report about that tecnology
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Iraq...ISRI-95-03.pdf

That's what I thought you were talking about. It has the practical problems I mentioned.

Quote:

It is not for large scale production, you can hardly produce 1kg/per year at home, but if you dont mind paying alot for energy, than maibe you could separate few kg per year
you should understand why Pu is better than U for this separation.

That is large scale production. And the article you referenced notes some issues I've mentioned:

"First, any method suitable for separating kilogram quantities of pure Pu-239 from reactor-grade plutonium has to be capable of operating with highly radioactive feed material. [snip] Isotopic separation of radioactive materials requires that the process takes place in a containment vessel which can be removed for decontamination."

So, "no user serviceable parts inside." Not a "do it at home" project.

And:

"Second, the atomic weight difference between PU-239 and Pu-240 is one, while it is three between U-238 and U-235. Thus, the enrichment of plutonium requires a three fold increase in separation power over enrichment of uranium. This means a substantial increase in difficulty . . ."

The U.S. gave up on calutrons very early because they were so darn energy intensive. There are fewer choices for plutonium, and while the scale is somewhat smaller, it is still very large, very difficult, and energy intensive.

This is something that a government might try to take on, if they have sufficient resources. It would be a major industrial operation, and you'll note that Iraq didn't get all that far with it.

Digix · #33 (**permalink**) 10-May-2006, 12:15 PM

I dont say it is so easy as making dynamyte. but you did not mentioned any fundamental problems. that article mostly talks about uanium which requires significaly more initial amount of unenriched material, and also much more final product for one bomb.

as I see calutrons are simple, and you can even buy them complete, they are used in laboratories for same purpose, for other isotope separation. it may be hard to get big one with higer productivity, but it is not so hard to build at home. afterall we have far better tecnologies than military had at WW2 time.

calutron does not have servicable parts, you may need to replace emmiter, and collectors but they are cheap anyway.

of course radiation, and poisioning danger is very high. thats why most same people will not do this, but if i do this in some third world country I can hire some people and sacrifice them. that will be cheaper than building maintenace robots.

so do you know other fundamental problems besides radiation, poisoning and power consumption if we assume we got enough reactor grade plutonium?

about production scale I bevlieve that report is right, and single calutron is not so big comparing to 100 calurton site. again if we use superconducting magnets from magnetic resonance medical device, separation will be very efective and device size will be not too big.

military does not use these methods because cost of bomb will be quite high, but for small prduction there is not much differnce it cost is even 10 times more, afterall only 1-2 bombs are reuired, not thousands of them

ryanmercer · #34 (**permalink**) 10-May-2006, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ara Pacis

I think the terrorist threat of nuclear weapons may be under-estimated. There are some claims that even reactor grade uranium and plutonium could be made into nuclear bombs. They would not be efficient, but they could yield up to a kiloton, more than enough to take down one or more skyscrapers.

As for large bombs, there is really little reason to do it. I'm not sure that it is impossible to make a one gigaton bomb... maybe a modified layercake multistage device could eventually deliver a yield that large through a series of steps, but I doubt it. It's more destructive to use several smaller bombs than one large bomb.

Even then, I don't think we'd actually be able to destroy all multicellular life on the planet directly. With a 5psi overpressure blast radius for a 200-kt airburst we'd need almost 1 million devices to blast every square mile of US territory. With a 500-KT airburst we'd need over half a million devices. With a 1-MT airburst we'd need over 338-thousand devices. Of course, animals burrows that are more than a few feet underground will survive at dramatically closer radii.

The above used a 5psi overpressure, but the published overpressure lethality threshold (not from impact from or against objects) for humans is actually 10psi. The radii for 10psi are: 2.8mi for 1MT, 2.2mi for 500KT, and 1.6mi for 200KT.

Radioactive fallout is harder to figure because you need to take into account the type of device, the yield, the location of the explosion, the winds and weather, the biology of the individual species, the time since the explosion, the area of deposition, the amount of time spent in the radioactive zone, the decay rate of the fallout and any mass shielding the animal might have from its habitat. Due to the shielding ability of water, it's unlikely we could ever kill off ocean life.

I don't see a threat at all except for dirty bombs... a terrorist organization... without kidnapping dozens of scientists and master machinists... is never going to be able to produce a thermonuclear weapon.

Grand_Lunar · #35 (**permalink**) 10-May-2006, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryanmercer

I don't see a threat at all except for dirty bombs... a terrorist organization... without kidnapping dozens of scientists and master machinists... is never going to be able to produce a thermonuclear weapon.

I agree.

Digix · #36 (**permalink**) 10-May-2006, 08:45 PM

termonuclear weapon of course cant be produced by single person or small organization. but simall plutonium bomb is relatively easy to make

Van Rijn · #37 (**permalink**) 10-May-2006, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digix

termonuclear weapon of course cant be produced by single person or small organization. but simall plutonium bomb is relatively easy to make

Relatively, yes. It is still very difficult, and that's assuming you can get the (right) plutonium which itself would be difficult.

As for plutonium enrichment, my points stand: This would be a major industrial operation with serious expertise requirements. A government might take a shot at it, that's about it.

publiusr · #38 (**permalink**) 19-May-2006, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digix

Many people know about russian hydrogen bomb with about 100megaton projected (50 megaton tested) power.
usualy mosts sources say that it was just test device that cant be used because there was no way to deliver it, however that is not true.

But recently on russian tv I saw that it actualy was possible to use. they designed special transcontinental torpedo, which could deliver that bomb near usa shore, and explosison would be so powerfull that it could create cunami which would be able to flood all NewYork.
also there was project to make bomb ship, with so big power that explosion would result end of the world.

fortunately these projects were not finished.

Actually there was a delivery method for the big 100 MT device. It was called UR-500 and is today known as the Proton launch vehicle. It orbited Mir and ISS modules, and commercial payloads. The bomb weighed about 25 metric tons but had a yield up to 100 megatons.

The SS-9 Scarp and the SS-18 Satan (Voevoda) were known as R-36 and R-36M, and in civilian clothes are known as the Titan II class rockets Tsyclon/Dnepr. They were to carry 18-25 MT warheads, and Scarp became known as the City-Buster.

UR-500 would have destroyed Cheyenne Mountain with ease.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ur500.htm

yuzuha · #39 (**permalink**) 20-May-2006, 08:28 AM

I remember hearing of plans to build a 1,000 megaton cobalt-salted doomsday device that was to be built in a large ship. Sergei Khrushchev said his father thought the plan was insane and scrapped it though.

I think viruses, poisons, self-replicating nano-machines or maybe even setting off a large thermonuclear weapon in the crust overlaying a super-volcano with an active magma chamber would be more economical for wiping out large numbers of people.

HenrikOlsen · #40 (**permalink**) 20-May-2006, 11:37 AM

Not to mention asteroid drops

Natural-Philosopher · #41 (**permalink**) 25-May-2006, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragon Star

KT was ONE pinpoint spot of destruction, but strategically placed bombs placed in thousands of places around the world would certainly kill all multicellular organisms on earth from a collaboration of fallout, nuclear winter, and the collapse of the food chain...other then things like bacteria life would be done for earth...at least for millions of years, and by the time it built it's self back up strong, the sun will boil away all the water on earth, destroying ALL LIFE FOR GOOD, including the single celled organisms.

Nope at least 1/3 of the biota wouldn't even notice. Science has just discovered where the bacteria that created our Oxygen atmosphere went. It was thought they died off, strangled in theire corrosive excreemnt. But they merely had to migrate away from the pollution of Oxygen. They live inder the ocean seabeds down through several miles of rock busily taking carbon and making and excreting other polluting stuff we call oil and "natural" gas...

Dragon Star · #42 (**permalink**) 26-May-2006, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Natural-Philosopher

Nope at least 1/3 of the biota wouldn't even notice. Science has just discovered where the bacteria that created our Oxygen atmosphere went. It was thought they died off, strangled in theire corrosive excreemnt. But they merely had to migrate away from the pollution of Oxygen. They live inder the ocean seabeds down through several miles of rock busily taking carbon and making and excreting other polluting stuff we call oil and "natural" gas...

Your point is? I said that the multicellular organisms would die, not the microbes.

Digix · #43 (**permalink**) 26-May-2006, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragon Star

Your point is? I said that the multicellular organisms would die, not the microbes.

nothing can kill microbes

they are nearly immortal, some can live inside of nuclear reactor where any other ogranizm would die insatntly because of radioation.
also cold bloded life form does not have much problems surriving lack of food, and low temperatures, many of them have perfect hybernation systems.

the most vulnerable will be hot blooded life forms, since these need huge amount of energy even to exsist. again some can hybernate, but not many.
so I am quite sure most of them would be in case of nuclear winter.

CaffeineFiend · #44 (**permalink**) 26-May-2006, 02:25 AM

I think that everyone is overlooking something very simple, the foodchain. Remove the bottom link and everything else dies. What I'm getting at is Herbascide. If someone could create a nuclear winter by opening a supervolcano, like the one in Yellow Stone, with a sufficiently powerful nuclear device, and then wipeout whatever is left with a sufficient amount of herbacide; the entire foodchain of earth would fall apart. Granted the amounts in question are massive, but I do not believe inconcieveable. With no producers, there can be no consumers... uh, that would be us by the way...

Digix · #45 (**permalink**) 26-May-2006, 02:43 AM

humans would be not so easy to wipe out of the earth, we have nuclear power left, if sun will be unavailable for some time. so we can live under ground for some time using nuclear power to produce food and heat.
of course this will not be enough for all 5 bilions on humans. so panic and violence will do more harm.

also since you cant kill microbes, you cant entirely kill all foodchain.

Dragon Star · #46 (**permalink**) 26-May-2006, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaffeineFiend

I think that everyone is overlooking something very simple, the foodchain.

I already mentioned it.

Blob · #47 (**permalink**) 29-May-2006, 10:59 PM

Hum,
In the future the most powerfull weapon in the world could be military nanobots.

They could target, for example, DNA, to destroy every living thing on the planet, or just to remove the atmosphere. Quick and clean...

Fram · #48 (**permalink**) 30-May-2006, 08:21 AM

And how many nanobots would you need to quickly destroy every living thing (not every human or so, but really everything)? And how would you remove an atmosphere quickly with nanobots?

Van Rijn · #49 (**permalink**) 30-May-2006, 08:39 AM

And where do they get the energy? Sunlight is the most obvious, but replication rates are limited to pretty much what we see with biological systems already. There are reasons why we don't already have natural "Grey Goo."

Drexler himself has thought better of the "Grey Goo" scenario. I expect that carefully targetted weaponized replicators would be a possibility, but it would require immensely sophisticated technology. We haven't managed to make a replicator yet, but it would be far easier to make one that operates in a special environment than in a natural one, especially if it is to be efficient and use a wide variety of source material.

Glom · #50 (**permalink**) 30-May-2006, 11:38 AM

No, no, no. The doomsday device is the one, which would force two electrons of the same spin into the same energy level, violating the Pauli Exclusion Principle. If it were able to do that, the wavefunctions of the electrons and the universe would cancel out thereby meaning the end of the universe and the electron too.

Blob · #51 (**permalink**) 30-May-2006, 01:08 PM

@777 geek
Hum,
you mean a fermionic bose condensate?

(Not so much as violating, but `bending` the Pauli Exclusion Principle)

Blob · #52 (**permalink**) 30-May-2006, 01:30 PM

@Van Rijn
Hum,
I don't think we can extrapolate from living biological systems to nonbiological systems.

IMHO, the reason why we don't see grey goo in biological systems is because diversification is `better` for life forms (ultimately the DNA), aka Gia theory.

With nanobots they would have no constraints. They could be designed to have no `built in` death or mutations, with just the goal of replicating and breaking apart a certain chemical or molecule etc (say, DNA).
As for energy, i could speculate, they could derive that from the breaking apart of the DNA or some similar chemical reaction (say oxygen with carbon)

Look out on ebay for my `working concept`of a munitions strength nanobot in a few years time...

Swift · #53 (**permalink**) 30-May-2006, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van Rijn

And where do they get the energy? Sunlight is the most obvious, but replication rates are limited to pretty much what we see with biological systems already. There are reasons why we don't already have natural "Grey Goo."

Not quite science fiction Grey Goo, but biofilms are kind of similar.

Personally, I think we are a long way from the nanobot / Grey Goo of science fiction. Energy is one problem, but we are still pretty far from that level of technology, particularly the self-replicating part. I suspect that we will have bio-bots, engineered viruses and bacteria, much sooner (in fact, we already do for some applications).

publiusr · #54 (**permalink**) 28-June-2006, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yuzuha

I remember hearing of plans to build a 1,000 megaton cobalt-salted doomsday device that was to be built in a large ship. Sergei Khrushchev said his father thought the plan was insane and scrapped it though.

I think viruses, poisons, self-replicating nano-machines or maybe even setting off a large thermonuclear weapon in the crust overlaying a super-volcano with an active magma chamber would be more economical for wiping out large numbers of people.

That was in Guiness awhile back--during the 1970's--but they said it was 50,000 MT!

Eta C · #55 (**permalink**) 29-June-2006, 04:24 AM

For a good reference on these, I'd refer people to Robert Serber's "Los Alamos Primer." These are the annotated lectures given at the start of the Manhattan project. They go into great discussion of the difficulties involved in making both U-235 and Pu-239 weapons. Although a person trying to build one now would not need to discover the basic science, as the Manhattan Project scientists did, the industrial problems remain. Major industrial efforts were required to gather the material for the first three bombs (Trinity, Little Boy, and Fat Man). After dropping the third on Nagasaki, the US would not have a fourth for several months. The best bet for a terrorist bomb would be to steal the material or find a nation state provider. I doubt they have the capability to make it themselves.

As to the most powerful weapon, Edward Teller supposedly had a concept for a weapon whose delivery method was "backyard" as it would destroy civilization, if not life, from there.

Ken G · #56 (**permalink**) 29-June-2006, 08:01 AM

Teller was a scary guy. We would have been better off without him, that seems clear.

yuzuha · #57 (**permalink**) 29-June-2006, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken G

Teller was a scary guy. We would have been better off without him, that seems clear.

Yes he is. Every time I've seen a pic or video of him in the last 40 years I've had this really strong urge to shave his eyebrows... "they just ain't natural!" *shudder*

His pop-up gamma ray lasers were interesting, though Los Alamos could never reproduce any of Livermore's data to confirm they'd work, and there was the minor problem of EMP'ing the crap out of ourselves and scattering all that fission debris from the bombs used as laser pumps.

Anti-matter bombs would be interesting and efficent, though a tad dangerous (containment problems) and the cost (several trillion $ to produce enough to amount to anything)

Ken G · #58 (**permalink**) 29-June-2006, 01:05 PM

The very idea that it is a good idea to invert more and more powerful weapons to keep ahead of the competition is a remarkably dangerous and short-sighted mode of thought. It is the munitions equivalent of a pain-pill junkie who must continually use more and more potent doses to achieve the same effect, leading ultimately to... well, that's pretty obvious.

publiusr · #59 (**permalink**) 29-June-2006, 07:51 PM

I liked Teller myself. Even John Archibald Wheeler got tired of seeing him bashed so. He might have had issues with him--but Teller didn't give secrets away which started the Cold War--like some of his ideological enemies did.

Ara Pacis · #60 (**permalink**) 29-June-2006, 11:03 PM

On the off-chance that we eventually run into another civilization in this galaxy I'd like to know that we have a bomb capable of destroying their home planet in the unlikely event of hostilities.

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