[ RadSafe ] Query civil and military application

[Ivor Surveyor]

To Radsafe:

I wonder if anybody on the list could comment on the current nexus 
between civil and military applications of nuclear energy.

I appreciate that much information in this area is by its nature 
classified and not in the public domain.  Yet the anti-nuclear 
advocacy groups have no difficulty, in their minds at least, in 
linking nuclear power with atomic weapons.

For instance they refer to the plutonium "waste" from civil power 
plants.  My understanding is that Pu from a civil plant is 
contaminated with other Pu radio-nuclides.  For instance are their 
levels of Pu-240 or  Pu-241 which preclude bomb making?    Even a low 
yield weapon "A fizzle explosion" is a "big bang."

Pu-238 contamination causes I understand a cooling problem.   Long 
standing waste Pu decays to Am-241.   Is this gamma radiation a 
further hazard for bomb makers?
Then there is talk of fuelling a power reactor at short intervals, 
this may be uneconomic but the object is to obtain weapons grade 
Pu.  Is this possible with modern generation IV reactors? Is it 
possible with existing reactors including RBMK and CANDU designs.

Their other story is uranium enrichment.  Surely, there must be great 
technical difficulties in scaling up from low enriched fuel 
production to bomb grade
U-235?

Then the impression is given that there are no technical difficulties 
in fabricating the Pu Bomb.   Is it really as easy as some suggest?
Lastly do you need sophisticated delivery systems?  For instance 
could you transport the bomb destination and escape detection by road 
or shipping transport.


Ivor Surveyor, MD (Brist), FRACP, FRCP
Emeritus Consultant Physician, Nuclear Medicine,

[isurveyor at vianet.net.au]