Interesting fact about making a nuke from New Scientist

[DimPrawn]

If terrorists get hold of two 45Kg lumps of enriched Uranium (there are tons of the stuff in Russia and USA with minimal security) and drop one lump on the other from a height of 1.8 metres, they would explode with a yield of 10 K tons.

Not exactly a difficult task once you have the enriched Uranium.

[Sockpuppet]

If terrorists get hold of two 45Kg lumps of enriched Uranium (there are tons of the stuff in Russia and USA with minimal security) and drop one lump on the other from a height of 1.8 metres, they would explode with a yield of 10 K tons.

Not exactly a difficult task once you have the enriched Uranium.

Not sure I "believe" that. Apart from the fact that you'd die long before dropping them if you were exposed to 90kg of uranium...its not the safest stuff in the world.

[AtW]

That article was written by threaded.

[Toad]

Enriched Uranium doesn't trouble Threaded at all.

It's the Kryptonite that gets to him.

[BoredBloke]

Nah - even kryptonite can't get through the layers of fat - It's special K which would do for him!

[wendigo100]

If terrorists get hold of two 45Kg lumps of enriched Uranium (there are tons of the stuff in Russia and USA with minimal security) and drop one lump on the other from a height of 1.8 metres, they would explode with a yield of 10 K tons.

Not exactly a difficult task once you have the enriched Uranium.

I believe this.

I didn't believe it at one time, but recently an old schoolmate, who has worked as a physicist at Aldermaston for 25 years, told me that it is possible to hold a hemisphere in each hand, slam them together and cause a nuclear bang.

The critical mass of enriched uranium (or was it plutonium?) is much less than 45 kg.

[Buffoon]

Somehow I don’t think that is really is that easy. If it was then why did it take the yanks so long to make the first bombs and spend so much money doing it? Also, if it was that easy then there would be far more nuclear armed states and terrorist groups. Why have there not been loads of accidental explosions at nuclear power stations?

[AtW]

It will take a long time (and money/materials) to get 45 kg of uranium, plus risk of self-denotation (and radiation) will be too high. They solve both problems by using small quantities of uran that are compressed together using normal explosion.

It takes a lot less plutonium to achieve the trick, which is really necessary for small blocks to be held on missiles.

[wendigo100]

Somehow I don’t think that is really is that easy. If it was then why did it take the yanks so long to make the first bombs and spend so much money doing it?

Perhaps they were short of volunteers!

But I'd guess that banging two hemispheres together is not going to be very efficient. A lot of material is going to be dispersed by the initial bang before it has a chance to go off, making the yield not much better than a bunch of conventional bombs. From what I can make out, part of the trick is to keep the material together for as long as possible after the detonator goes off.

Also, if it was that easy then there would be far more nuclear armed states and terrorist groups.

Don't speak too soon. This could well be our future.

Why have there not been loads of accidental explosions at nuclear power stations?

Nuclear power is very expensive because of all the safety equipment and processes required to prevent accidents.

[TheMonkey]

You can build a small breeder reactor with not much stuff swiped from places. Some guy in the US did it and they had to clean up after the mess he made....

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html