[ RadSafe ] Claimed FACTSHEET: Uranium Weapons By Lizzy Bloem

[Maury Siskel]

Hi Steve,
I did not know either; so here is a part of what I've just learned.... 
<g>  I think it boils down to miniature nuclear weapons; i.e., yields  = 
1 to 100 tons of TNT and as such they fall outside the jurisdiction of 
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)
Best,
Maury&Dog
_____________________________
Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons
The Physical Principles Of Thermonuclear Explosives, Inertial 
Confinement Fusion, And The Quest For Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons

by Andre Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni
Fifth Edition: March 1999

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/INESAPTR1.html


      Executive Summary

Extract from the Executive Summary:
"    The fourth chapter is devoted to fourth generation nuclear weapons. 
These new fission or fusion explosives could have yields in the range of 
1 to 100 ton equivalents of TNT, i.e., in the gap which today separates 
conventional weapons from nuclear weapons. These relatively low-yield 
nuclear explosives would not qualify as weapons of \emph{mass} 
destruction. Seven physical processes which could be used to make such 
low-yield nuclear weapons, or to make compact non-fission triggers for 
large scale thermonuclear explosions, are investigated in detail: 
subcritical fission-burn, magnetic compression, superheavy elements, 
antimatter, nuclear isomers, metallic hydrogen and superlasers (i.e., 
ultrapowerful lasers with intensities higher than 1019 W/cm2).

The conclusion stresses that considerable research is underway in all 
five nuclear-weapon States (as well as in several other major 
industrialized States such as Germany and Japan) on ICF and on many 
physical processes that provide the scientific basis necessary to 
develop fourth generation nuclear weapons. Substantial progress has been 
made in the past few years on all these processes, and the construction 
of large ICF microexplosion facilities in both nuclear-weapon and 
non-nuclear-weapon States is giving the arms race a fresh boost. The 
world runs the risk that certain countries will equip themselves 
directly with fourth generation nuclear weapons, bypassing the 
acquisition of previous generations of nuclear weapons.

In this context, the invention of the superlaser, which enabled a factor 
of one million increase in the instantaneous power of tabletop lasers, 
is possibly the most significant advance in military technology of the 
past ten years. This increase is of the same magnitude as the factor of 
one million difference in energy density between chemical and nuclear 
energy.

A major arms control problem of fourth generation nuclear weapons is 
that their development is very closely related to pure scientific 
research. The chief purpose of the CTBT is to freeze the technology of 
nuclear weapons as a first step toward general and complete nuclear 
disarmament. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to implement 
effective measures of preventive arms control, such as international 
legally binding restrictions in all relevant areas of research and 
development, whether they are claimed to be for military or civilian 
purposes."

ISBN: 3-933071-02-X. 183 pages, 25 figures, 4 tables, 528 references 
(Fifth corrected and expanded version of a report first distributed at 
the 1997 INESAP Conference, Shanghai, China, September 8--10, 1997.)

=================================
Steven Dapra wrote:

> June 21
>
>         Assuming that there is such a thing, what is a "fourth 
> generation nuclear weapon"?  (See last sentence, well below.)
>
> Steven Dapra
>
>
> At 09:09 AM 6/21/2010, you wrote:
>
>> The paragraph below affords an example of the extreme notions being 
>> spread by the Palestine Telegraph. I regret the political overtones, 
>> but this radiation misinformation is typical of the  anti-nuclear 
>> charges aiming to prevent nuclear power generation and other nuclear 
>> applications.
>>
>> I hope some List members might write letters to help counteract this 
>> kind of propaganda being spread worldwide.
>> Best,
>> Maury&Dog [MaurySiskel maurysis at peoplepc.com]
>> ____________________
>> http://www.paltelegraph.com/columnists/peter-eyre/6465-now-the-truth-as-to-why-the-west-is-in-afghanistan 
>>
>>
>> "Finally to put things into perspective the west has released into 
>> the atmosphere, up to the current time (and continue to do so), the 
>> global catastrophic impact of radiation equivalent to hundreds of 
>> thousands of Nagasaki bombs. This radiation has been released into 
>> the atmosphere from depleted uranium weapons in the Balkans, Kuwait, 
>> Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Gaza with additional 
>> possible usage of 4th generation nuclear weapons in Lebanon and Gaza."
>
>
>