Where are the missing nukes from the 90s now?

[WatermelonPig]

Is there any public info on where they are now/how many are missing?

 

[Drakkith]

Which nukes are you referring to? Is this from a specific incident?

 

[WatermelonPig]

Pretty much the unguarded ones from the former USSR and the main ones I can think of. My physics professor said he didn't even know how many are missing and that it was confidential.

 

[Drakkith]

See here: http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-terrorism/loose-nukes/p9549#p3

 

[clancy688]

In my opinion, there's an even bigger threat than missing nukes originating in the former soviet union - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator"

Those generators are powered by isotopes such as Strontium-90 or Cobalt-60. The soviet union build thousands of them to power lighthouses or other stations far away from the civilization. And nobody can track where these generators are. Even one would be sufficient for building a dirty bomb.

A couple of years ago some georgian woodcutters found some cylinders in the woods. Those were warm, so they used them to get some heat during the cold night. They ended up with serious beta burns. Those cylinders were later found out to belong to soviet radioisotope generators.

 

[Dmytry]

In my opinion, there's an even bigger threat than missing nukes originating in the former soviet union - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator"

Those generators are powered by isotopes such as Strontium-90 or Cobalt-60. The soviet union build thousands of them to power lighthouses or other stations far away from the civilization. And nobody can track where these generators are. Even one would be sufficient for building a dirty bomb.

A couple of years ago some georgian woodcutters found some cylinders in the woods. Those were warm, so they used them to get some heat during the cold night. They ended up with serious beta burns. Those cylinders were later found out to belong to soviet radioisotope generators.

a lot of such stories in former SU, yea. Other time, an excavator operator found such barrels, fortunately he was educated and seeing steam rising immediately called authorities and did not approach. IIRC that was Co-60. This **** is scary.
Strontium 90 is a bone seeker, the fraction that ends up in bones never leaves you (biological half life for strontium in bones is few hundreds years), beta-only (a bit of gamma by bremsstrahlung), and testing for it is harder than for Cs-137. Half life 28 years or so.

For the dirty bomb - I don't think I'd be a lot more impressed than by chemical explosive or poison, TBH. This stuff is fortunately easy to detect, so it really does scare me less than chemical stuff. Accidental exposure from this in building material is what is scary.

 

[clancy688]

Accidental exposure from this in building material is what is scary.

You should go to http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/ResultsPage.asp" page and search for "radiological accident".

What you read there is even worse than the scariest horror movie... the accident source No. 1 is apparently doing radiographic images at building sites in three world countries.
Operators are doing x-ray images of valves or whatever and somehow they lose the radiation source without noticing it. Then a worker finds and keeps it - a little piece of pure Cobalt-60 or something like this.

 

[Dmytry]

You should go to http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/ResultsPage.asp" page and search for "radiological accident".

What you read there is even worse than the scariest horror movie... the accident source No. 1 is apparently doing radiographic images at building sites in three world countries.
Operators are doing x-ray images of valves or whatever and somehow they lose the radiation source without noticing it. Then a worker finds and keeps it - a little piece of pure Cobalt-60 or something like this.

I know of many cases of that yea. Hmm. I should build me a Geiger counter. Or rather, ion chamber, easier to make from scratch, and measure without needing calibration (based on calculations).
They had Co-60 source mixed with rebar in Taiwan iirc. Then the building company started funding hormesis studies (comparing the cancer rate of young people to general population and telling that their Co-60 was not merely harmless, but good for health. Nevermind that they first averaged people's doses as per LNT, and THEN got hormesis on the averaged dose).
edit: oh lol, found that Taiwan accident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents#1980s

 

[QuantumPion]

There are at least a few nuclear weapons at the bottom of the ocean from lost submarines (USS Scorpion, K-219, K-141, etc).

Also I believe there was a B-52 that crashed in the ocean with a nuclear bomb on board that was never recovered in the 1950's, but I can't remember the details.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

It was a B-47, and it was just off the coast of Georgia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_B-47_crash

The Tybee Island B-47 crash was an incident on February 5, 1958, in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 hydrogen bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, USA. During a practice exercise the B-47 bomber carrying it collided in midair with an F-86 fighter plane. To prevent a detonation in the event of a crash and to save the aircrew, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island.

Some more interesting reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear_incident_terminology#Broken_Arrow

 

[HowlerMonkey]

I'm pretty sure they decomissioned the RTGs on the russian coastlines and replaced them with solar lighthouses.

 

[WatermelonPig]

Are you guys really sure about there being no confrimed missing nukes from the USSR? That seems to contradict what I was told, but ok.

 

[clancy688]

Are you guys really sure about there being no confrimed missing nukes from the USSR? That seems to contradict what I was told, but ok.

If there are indeed nukes missing, they are at least 20 years old - and have not been maintained during this time.
I don't think that they are still operational...

 

[Drakkith]

Are you guys really sure about there being no confrimed missing nukes from the USSR? That seems to contradict what I was told, but ok.

No one here can be sure. All we can say is that the available sources say that there aren't any confirmed missing nukes. I don't personally believe there are. If they were stolen years ago, what have they done since then with the nuke? Definitely not used it, otherwise we would know.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

If there are indeed nukes missing, they are at least 20 years old - and have not been maintained during this time.
I don't think that they are still operational...

Though they more than likely would not detonate, The Uranium and Plutonium could be recycled or used in a Dirty Bomb. One well placed Dirty Bomb could make a large population area uninhabitable.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

I have been told by many fellow Naval Officers that the real source of the Uranium that went into the Pakistan Nuclear Bomb program came from the former Soviet Union. I doubt that has ever been confirmed, but it only stands to reason when you consider how disorganized the breakup of the Soviet Union was. People tried to make profits from illegal sales of anything they could get their hands on.

 

[QuantumPion]

Though they more than likely would not detonate, The Uranium and Plutonium could be recycled or used in a Dirty Bomb. One well placed Dirty Bomb could make a large population area uninhabitable.

Actually it wouldn't, especially not one made of plutonium. The only way for a dirty bomb to be remotely effective would be if it were made of a high activity isotope like cobolt-60. But the whole premise of a dirty bomb is flawed, since the explosion would spread the material out to non-dangerous concentrations. You could not make a whole city uninhabitable with a transportable amount of radioactive material. The only damage would be due to the explosion part itself, and any panic the news causes.

A far more effective strategy would be just to hide the radioactive material someplace where a lot of people come in close contact with it without realizing anything, until they start showing acute radiation poisoning symptoms days later.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

Actually it wouldn't, especially not one made of plutonium. The only way for a dirty bomb to be remotely effective would be if it were made of a high activity isotope like cobolt-60. But the whole premise of a dirty bomb is flawed, since the explosion would spread the material out to non-dangerous concentrations. You could not make a whole city uninhabitable with a transportable amount of radioactive material. The only damage would be due to the explosion part itself, and any panic the news causes.

A far more effective strategy would be just to hide the radioactive material someplace where a lot of people come in close contact with it without realizing anything, until they start showing acute radiation poisoning symptoms days later.

False assumption on your part there QP. A dirty Bomb is usually understood to have any crap they can load in it that is radioactive and a danger to health. Particulate Plutonium is dangerous to health. Cobolt 60 and Strontium 90 and Medical waste and radioactive samples and so on and so forth could be bundled around several hundred pounds of dynamite. The conventional explosion could spread radioactive contamination over a broad residential area. The purpose of a dirty bomb is harassment of locale. It is not intended to destroy large areas.

 

[clancy688]

and any panic the news causes.

That's the point with terrorism. They don't bomb places because they want to do damage. They want to spread fear, and even if a dirty bomb would be very ineffective, the psychological effects would be devastating.

 

[QuantumPion]

False assumption on your part there QP. A dirty Bomb is usually understood to have any crap they can load in it that is radioactive and a danger to health. Particulate Plutonium is dangerous to health. Cobolt 60 and Strontium 90 and Medical waste and radioactive samples and so on and so forth could be bundled around several hundred pounds of dynamite. The conventional explosion could spread radioactive contamination over a broad residential area. The purpose of a dirty bomb is harassment of locale. It is not intended to destroy large areas.

What false assumption? You stated that uranium and plutonium could be useful for a dirty bomb. This is not true. While these metals are toxic, the bomb would diffuse the material over such a large area that no one would be exposed to a concentrated amount. Also, U and Pu are only slightly radioactive.

Furthermore, you stated that a large dirty bomb could make a large population area uninhabitable. This is also not true. The only thing a dirty bomb does is turn a dangerous amount of radioactivity in a closed container into a non-dangerous amount of radioactivity over a large area. You could not feasibly make a dirty bomb large enough to spread enough radioactive material around to cause any area to be uninhabitable.

I don't think the radioactive material would cause substantially more fear than the bomb itself caused anyways.

 

[Dmytry]

what's about criticality accident in a public place? That'd be scary.

 

[clancy688]

what's about criticality accident in a public place? That'd be scary.

Yeah, but absolutely not comparable to the ISS crashing into a populated area. Criticality accidents in public places, how the hell is that supposed to happen? ^^
Do you think a nuclear scientists takes two subcritic plutonium spheres into a street cafe to experiment with them at a nice place?

 

[Joe Neubarth]

What false assumption? You stated that uranium and plutonium could be useful for a dirty bomb. This is not true. While these metals are toxic, the bomb would diffuse the material over such a large area that no one would be exposed to a concentrated amount. Also, U and Pu are only slightly radioactive.

Furthermore, you stated that a large dirty bomb could make a large population area uninhabitable. This is also not true. The only thing a dirty bomb does is turn a dangerous amount of radioactivity in a closed container into a non-dangerous amount of radioactivity over a large area. You could not feasibly make a dirty bomb large enough to spread enough radioactive material around to cause any area to be uninhabitable.

I don't think the radioactive material would cause substantially more fear than the bomb itself caused anyways.

You take the cake! You did not have the slightest idea what a dirty bomb is or could be. But, now, you are trying to weasel your way out of an embarrassing post that makes you look like an annoying nincompoop. A dirty bomb is a dirty bomb, set off by conventional means and intended to spread radiation and other dirt and fear over a designated area. Sure, some dirty bombs can be designed to spread more radiation than others, but I did not post a topic about how to build the most effective radioactive dirty bomb. Mine was a very simple statement that "they" could be used in a dirty bomb. They can. That was the end of the statement.

My statement stands, Plutonium and Uranium can still be used in a dirty bomb.

 

[Joe Neubarth]

what's about criticality accident in a public place? That'd be scary.

Some of our criticality accidents have been in public places (Well, sort of public if you count Simi Valley and the University of Chicago and the University of California and places like that.)

 

[Dmytry]

Yeah, but absolutely not comparable to the ISS crashing into a populated area. Criticality accidents in public places, how the hell is that supposed to happen? ^^
Do you think a nuclear scientists takes two subcritic plutonium spheres into a street cafe to experiment with them at a nice place?

Ok I should of said, criticality incident. Some terrorist taking two subcritical plutonium spheres and bringing them close in public.

 

[QuantumPion]

You take the cake! You did not have the slightest idea what a dirty bomb is or could be. But, now, you are trying to weasel your way out of an embarrassing post that makes you look like an annoying nincompoop. A dirty bomb is a dirty bomb, set off by conventional means and intended to spread radiation and other dirt and fear over a designated area. Sure, some dirty bombs can be designed to spread more radiation than others, but I did not post a topic about how to build the most effective radioactive dirty bomb. Mine was a very simple statement that "they" could be used in a dirty bomb. They can. That was the end of the statement.

My statement stands, Plutonium and Uranium can still be used in a dirty bomb.

Well if you want to be derogatory and call me names that's fine, but you're still wrong. I never said you couldn't make a dirty bomb using uranium and plutonium. I simply stated the fact that such a weapon would not be effective in any way, and it would not cause any casualties or damage, apart from the conventional explosive itself.

Maybe you should educate yourself on the topic before insulting forum members whom you know nothing about.

 

[Danuta]

The terrifying element to this dirty bomb must be highly radioactive, easily dispersable(something that would be rather deadly inhaled is good) and must be transportable without killing the people wishing to detonate it. What to use? What to use? I don't think uranium or plutonium would give the hoped effect either. But, you could explode them of course.

Edit: Hmm...maybe uranium(in the right form) can give the hoped effect(slightly delayed) after all ----"uranium particulates are of great concern since respirable(inhaled) aerosol uranium is now known to be extremely genotoxic due to photoelectron conversion of gamma radiation and because uranium binds to DNA"

 

[Danuta]

Some terrorist taking two subcritical plutonium spheres and bringing them close in public.

LOL. A little too sophisticated for the perpetrator, no? I mean now one has to take into account the performance of highly skilled people working for a certain NPP in one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world vs. a mere terrorist who has been going to the gym of late.

Premature ignition?

 

[Drakkith]

Easy folks, don't get too caught up with the details of peoples post. It's just a forum.

CAN you make a dirty bomb out of leftover uranium and plutonium? Yes.
Would it be effective in producing fear and such in the public? Yes.
Would it be hazordous? Probably not, as post have said above.

Does that look correct?

 

[rnc2]

I remember the number from a news story from a major network, mid 90s (can't remember date) reported that "80" attache' cases containing, I believe, 1 K ton nuclear yield each. The report showed one and mentioned that they had been stolen from somewhere in Russia and were possibly made available on the black market. I definitely remember thinking, "WTF?" Nothing was ever again reported to my knowledge after that.

 

[Dmytry]

I wonder, how much impressive would it be if you took two subcritical hemispheres of plutonium and slapped them together by hand? I know it wouldn't explode much, but it would still do quite a lot of fissions, meaning quite a lot of neutrons, meaning giant doses to everything around. And i don't mean barely critical like Slotin's experiment. No, two hemispheres which together are very strongly supercritical.

Replica of little boy would also be easy. Think, even 100T is a lot.

 

[Drakkith]

I wonder, how much impressive would it be if you took two subcritical hemispheres of plutonium and slapped them together by hand? I know it wouldn't explode much, but it would still do quite a lot of fissions, meaning quite a lot of neutrons, meaning giant doses to everything around. And i don't mean barely critical like Slotin's experiment. No, two hemispheres which together are very strongly supercritical.

Replica of little boy would also be easy. Think, even 100T is a lot.

The difficulty isn't the building of the nuclear weapon, it is aquiring the required material without arising suspicion. That plus making the weapon small enough to get it to where you need it. The original nukes were massive multi-ton bombs and only later were developed to a few hundred pounds that we have in some warheads now.

 

[Danuta]

I remember the number from a news story from a major network, mid 90s (can't remember date) reported that "80" attache' cases containing, I believe, 1 K ton nuclear yield each. The report showed one and mentioned that they had been stolen from somewhere in Russia and were possibly made available on the black market. I definitely remember thinking, "WTF?" Nothing was ever again reported to my knowledge after that.

You mean some of this "WTF" stuff? Only 10% accounted for if you believe it's just 220 pounds of uranium.

http://www.bellona.org/english_import_area/international/russia/incidents/35353"

Or was it some of this? Oh boy, 310-360 pounds of plutonium.

http://www.bellona.org/news/news_2008/missing_pu"

 

[minerva]

Well if you want to be derogatory and call me names that's fine, but you're still wrong. I never said you couldn't make a dirty bomb using uranium and plutonium. I simply stated the fact that such a weapon would not be effective in any way, and it would not cause any casualties or damage, apart from the conventional explosive itself.

Maybe you should educate yourself on the topic before insulting forum members whom you know nothing about.

In terms of actually giving people radiological dose with a dirty bomb, U or Pu are really not "useful" at all, and the hot radionuclides used in industry and medicine (¹³⁷Cs, ⁶⁰Co ¹⁹²Ir, etc...) are the sorts of things considered real threats for dirty-bomb weaponisation.

But dirty bombs never really post a great threat in terms of actual radiation dose to people... they do damage through fear, panic, FUD, diversion of government resources for decontamination and surveys and regulation of the contaminated area, etc.

Dirty bombs actually do their damage, basically, because of the public's health physics illiteracy and anti-nuclear fear.

So, actually, in fact, a bit of plutonium would be a really, really effective dirty bomb weapon - not in terms of giving people actual radiological dose or health effects, but simply because plutonium is so feared, rationally or not.

 

[zapperzero]

You take the cake! You did not have the slightest idea what a dirty bomb is or could be. But, now, you are trying to weasel your way out of an embarrassing post that makes you look like an annoying nincompoop. A dirty bomb is a dirty bomb, set off by conventional means and intended to spread radiation and other dirt and fear over a designated area. Sure, some dirty bombs can be designed to spread more radiation than others, but I did not post a topic about how to build the most effective radioactive dirty bomb. Mine was a very simple statement that "they" could be used in a dirty bomb. They can. That was the end of the statement.

My statement stands, Plutonium and Uranium can still be used in a dirty bomb.

Ohh, but this is QuantumPion and to him, everything nuclear is GOOD (or at least, mostly harmless).