Plutonium 'missing' at Sellafield

[Czar]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4272691.stm

Enough plutonium to make seven nuclear bombs is unaccounted for in the records of Sellafield power station, British Nuclear Group is expected to announce.
The Times claims an annual audit due to be published later will show that 30kg of plutonium is classified as "material unaccounted for" during 2004.

A BBC correspondent expected British Nuclear Fuels to admit a "paper loss".

And the Department of Trade and Industry said the audit "does not represent any material going missing".

The discrepancy, which compares with a 19kg discrepancy at the plant in 2003, is expected to embarrass the British Nuclear Group, which manages the facility.

In a statement, the DTI said: "This is an accounting process.

"It's not unusual for the accounting process to indicate material unaccounted for.

"Again, it's not an indication of any missing material."

Plutonium is a man-made radioactive metal that can be used as a nuclear fuel and a nuclear weapon.

Sellafield processes thousands of tons of nuclear material every year.

British Nuclear Fuels, the parent company of BNG, is yet to comment on the situation but are expected to do so on Thursday.

'Dramatic development'

BBC Science Correspondent Sue Nelson said the company is expected to play down any fears by saying that any unaccounted materials will be "within the standards of allowed measurement inaccuracies".

They are expected to play down fears by saying it is a "paper loss", rather than a physical one, she said.

Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear weapons specialist, told the Times: "There will always be some material unaccounted for but this is a dramatic development.

"This is a major reason for not reprocessing spent nuclear fuel because you can't tell what the material unaccounted for is."

Time to close this thing down.
Dont know how many have been following the news about Sellafield but people living around the north Atlantic, expecialy Norway and Iceland have been very very worried about this recycling center because of the amount of pollution dumped into the sea which then moves slowly with the gulf stream towards Norway.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/3472001.stm

There the water cools down and travels back down the Atlantic going through Iceland and past North America. The process is thankfully not at that point yet but it will happen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/3472001.stm
See here and check out "See also:" links to the right side of the page

 

[Stumps]

oops...Caboom!

 

[jackschmittusa]

In a statement, the DTI said: "This is an accounting process.

"It's not unusual for the accounting process to indicate material unaccounted for.

"Again, it's not an indication of any missing material."

A perfect example of why ex-government people should not be hired by banks.

Do they have some carny guessing the weight of incoming shipments?

Given the extraordinary measures normally accorded to keeping plutonium secure, it would seem that their accounting methods are not suited to the task and therefore unacceptable.

 

[conjur]

Perhaps it's just been dumped into the sea

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: conjur
Perhaps it's just been dumped into the sea

exactly what I'm talking about, the problem with Sellafield has been from the day it was opened

 

[flamingelephant]

HOT DEAL!

several kg's of plutonium....
accepting offers!

 

[rahvin]

Since when do you only need 4kg of plutonium for a bomb? I thought critical mass was 10kg? I realize you can get a supercritical mass using high explosives to implode the plutonium but without some very high tech I thought that was pretty difficult to accomplish. I get the impression the media is running with the maximum number of bombs possible rather than what could be built by someone without access to high tech detonators and explosives.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: rahvin
Since when do you only need 4kg of plutonium for a bomb? I thought critical mass was 10kg? I realize you can get a supercritical mass using high explosives to implode the plutonium but without some very high tech I thought that was pretty difficult to accomplish. I get the impression the media is running with the maximum number of bombs possible rather than what could be built by someone without access to high tech detonators and explosives.

Yes, IIRC the lowest critical mass required for a pure fission weapon is in the area of 10kg but even that is dependant on having a known effective design and all the required materials to properly build that design. The first stage of a thermonuclear weapon would require less material but increases the complexity of the design by including the requirement to properly ignite the fusion fuel.

Many non-nuclear countries do possess the technical proficiency to create nuclear weapons if handed the fissile material. Plutonium weapons do require more engineering than Uranium weapons, but beggars can?t be choosers when it comes to weapons grade materials.

For a less sophisticated person/group with no access to a design, or the materials and knowledge required to construct it, I?d think a purely radiological weapon would be the attractive use of highly enriched Plutonium.

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: K1052
Yes, IIRC the lowest critical mass required for a pure fission weapon is in the area of 10kg but even that is dependant on having a known effective design and all the required materials to properly build that design. The first stage of a thermonuclear weapon would require less material but increases the complexity of the design by including the requirement to properly ignite the fusion fuel.

Many non-nuclear countries do possess the technical proficiency to create nuclear weapons if handed the fissile material. Plutonium weapons do require more engineering than Uranium weapons, but beggars can?t be choosers when it comes to weapons grade materials.

For a less sophisticated person/group with no access to a design, or the materials and knowledge required to construct it, I?d think a purely radiological weapon would be the attractive use of highly enriched Plutonium.

The construction and design is not difficult. The difficulty is in getting your explosives to fire such that you super critical the mass rather than just blow it all over the place. This requires access to and use of very expensive and high tech explosives and detonators. I would agree with you that there are many countries that given the material could produce the weapon but the countries we are concerned about would have great difficulty aquiring the triggers and explosives.

The triggers required all must fire within nanoseconds of each other and the explosives have to be layered such that you have layers of slow burning explosives over the main explosive so that the spherical comperession rendered by the explosive is uniform and occurs similtaneously.

Personally I don't find radilogical weapons that scary, they would be semi-expensive to clean up but they can be cleaned up and if you evacuate and manage the situation the toxicity of the material would be pretty low, in fact I doubt anyone would die from the radiation.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: rahvin

Originally posted by: K1052
Yes, IIRC the lowest critical mass required for a pure fission weapon is in the area of 10kg but even that is dependant on having a known effective design and all the required materials to properly build that design. The first stage of a thermonuclear weapon would require less material but increases the complexity of the design by including the requirement to properly ignite the fusion fuel.

Many non-nuclear countries do possess the technical proficiency to create nuclear weapons if handed the fissile material. Plutonium weapons do require more engineering than Uranium weapons, but beggars can?t be choosers when it comes to weapons grade materials.

For a less sophisticated person/group with no access to a design, or the materials and knowledge required to construct it, I?d think a purely radiological weapon would be the attractive use of highly enriched Plutonium.

The construction and design is not difficult. The difficulty is in getting your explosives to fire such that you super critical the mass rather than just blow it all over the place. This requires access to and use of very expensive and high tech explosives and detonators. I would agree with you that there are many countries that given the material could produce the weapon but the countries we are concerned about would have great difficulty aquiring the triggers and explosives.

The triggers required all must fire within nanoseconds of each other and the explosives have to be layered such that you have layers of slow burning explosives over the main explosive so that the spherical comperession rendered by the explosive is uniform and occurs similtaneously.

Personally I don't find radilogical weapons that scary, they would be semi-expensive to clean up but they can be cleaned up and if you evacuate and manage the situation the toxicity of the material would be pretty low, in fact I doubt anyone would die from the radiation.

The bulk of the technology required could be acquired through less than reputable sources from several possible sellers (the purpose made electronics in the former USSR being of chief concern).

The main advantage of using the material in a radiological weapon would be the ensuing panic that would likely be produced which could kill/injure many more people than the material itself

 

[GoPackGo]

perhaps one of the administrators let his girlfriends kid into the place and then the kid stole the plutonium and put soap in its place

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
perhaps one of the administrators let his girlfriends kid into the place and then the kid stole the plutonium and put soap in its place

Maybe he plans on building a completely functional nuclear weapon and entering it in a science fair.

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
perhaps one of the administrators let his girlfriends kid into the place and then the kid stole the plutonium and put soap in its place

Maybe he plans on building a completely functional nuclear weapon and entering it in a science fair.

:beer::beer:

 

[CaptnKirk]

Probably snuck it out in his butt crack.

 

[conjur]

Apparently, it's just a matter of some f-ed up recordkeeping:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4272691.stm