Chrisnonstop

I'm watching a thing on "Primetime" right now about security at nuclear reactors on college campuses. Students were able to gain access to many of these reactors around the country. Pimetime reporters say that these things house up to 18 KG's of enriched nuclear material that can be made into a "dirty bomb". Basically a piece of material with a block of explosives hugging it and blown up. The dust goes into the air and anyone that breaths or eats it gets really sick. Plus the area it goes off in needs to be cleaned and that's super expensive and takes a very long time.

This is nuts. If you detonate a sizable dirty bomb in the middle of the financial district of S.F. during lunch time...yikes.

Granted you'd have to get the material out of the reactor. The students were able to video cams into the ractor rooms. If they were terrorists, they could just go in at night, kill everyone, and take thier time getting the material out. Make the bomb, be in S.F. by 12pm the next day. Even a tiny dirty bomb will make a huge statement.

I just thought this was interesting.

Salty

iTrader: (14)

Not surprising. Everything is just hunky-dory in civilian land. No discipline whatsoever...

And the reassuring part is that because most Universities tend to attract liberal groups, think of those that have access that could easily snap by becoming more extreme. They wouldn’t even need to kill everyone inside to get access.

dub2w

WHAT?? Yeah, the Commie liberals would probably let terrorists in and bring them pizza to boot!

This is a shot in the dark, but I would think that the field of nuclear energy attracts a certain politically-leaning person. And last I heard the Sierra Club wasnt promoting nuclear energy for Americans.

Salty

iTrader: (14)

No, I’m not saying that the Commie liberals would welcome it at all because this is their country as well. I'm saying that if Abu Muhammad and his cousin were 1st year freshmen’s science field majors at UCB they would be openly accepted by the liberals groups without so much as a worry. It's a flaw in their social structure that leaves them completely vulnerable to infiltration.

The terrorists would blend in like a needle in a haystack. Wouldn’t be hard for them at all seeing how they already have liberal ideals like the students albeit much more extreme. All would take is a decent actor and determination for the cause.

gilmore25

iTrader: (1)

So who's guarding these places Rent a cops?? if so then that's why it was so easy for College girls to show some T&A to get through the doors.

MVWRX

iTrader: (1)

Noone guarded anything (well I think U of New Mexico had good security, and one other...), saw this last night too. Pretty damn freightening...although there is one thing to note. The show quoted how much Uranium each facility was ALLOWED to have...not how much they actually stock. My guess, since most of them were not used very much, is that there is less radioactive material around those places than the show let on. It was still scary as hell, and I'm sure something will be done about it now since the head guy in charge of nuclear reactor security saw the whole thing.

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

How come Primetime never addresses the dificulty in moving radioactive material. Even if you are suicidal, you can't just pull up a truck and load up your material in tweny minutes. Primetime went out of there way to scare people, not inform or educate them.

gilmore25

iTrader: (1)

Then they wouldn't of had that many viewers watching

MVWRX

iTrader: (1)

It's only difficult to move if you care about safety...if you're plan is to blow yourself and other people up, you can put it in a crate and load it on a pick up.

Salty

iTrader: (14)

I wonder how fast does radiation cripples your body?

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

B.S.

What are you going to do....dive in the water and grab it with your hands and load it in a crate??? You have seen too many movies.

svxr8dr

iTrader: (1)

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/...tor-story.html


Interesting perspective

Salty

iTrader: (14)

Yeah, I way always under the impression that any direct exposure to energy and weapons grade plutonioum and uranium will kill you pretty fast. Add in an extended period of exposure by transportation and actually preparing the device.

Chrisnonstop

The bottom line is that the students were able to walk right up to the reactor. How long would it take to get the fuel out? An hour. 8 hours. Does it matter? If the terrorists wanted to I think they could take over the entire building and kill any security inside without anyone knowing.

As far as exposure...you could hold the amount used in these reactors all day and still be able to carry out a suicide mission without difficulty.

The only thing you have to worry about (not in this scenario) is when there's a criticality. That's when an out of control chain reaction happens between two highly enriched sources of nuclear radiation that get too close. Then you see a blue flash (this happens inside your eyeballs but it looks like the room lights up) and you die a very short time later. (like what they did to the monkeys in the movie X-project or was it called project X?)

Even a tiny amount of radioactive material can be deadly when ingested. Plus the area that it explodes in would be made totally un-inhabitable untill a complete clean up was done. Granted it's a small isolated event. However, there would be huge psychological factor.

dr3d1zzl3

iTrader: (1)

you guys just live on fear uncertainty and doubt dont you?

****ing ***gots get the **** over your retarded *** fears


i would be much more worried about some ******* buying up a bunch of old dentist xray machines on ebay and fashioning a dirty bomb out of that then a ****ing locked up tight nuke reactor (how you going to get that uranium out of the ****ing core dip****s?) on a campus somewhere..

even if you blew the **** out of the building that core most likely wouldnt even crack..


again

stop flaunting your ****ing stupidity people, the least you could do is LEARN A LITTLE ABOUT WTF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT BEFORE YOU REMOVE ALL DOUBT ABOUT YOUR OWN IGNORANCE

/rant