Destroying Nuclear Weapons with High-Energy Neutrinos

TheMatt writes "As reported by PhysicsWeb, physicists are proposing a "futuristic but not necessarily impossible" method of destroying nuclear weapons via high-energy neutrinos sent through the earth. Based on current planned efforts, this 'vast extrapolation' of current technology would use 1000 TeV beams. This would require a 1000-km diameter storage ring using magnets orders-of-magnitude stronger than currently available. The cost would be around $100 million-plus and it'd use 50 GW of energy, the UK's current consumption. (And the slight problem that the process might set off the nukes, instead of just melting them...)"

Comments

It would require...

[ewhenn]

This would require a 1000-km diameter storage ring

Oh, is that all? A mere 1000km storage ring. For you US folks out there, that is approx 600 miles.

On a serious note, what happens if you miss with this thing? It is quite interesting scientifically, however interesting never implies practicality.

Dear North Korea

[jrivar59]

Dear North Korea,

Please allow me to express our deepest regrets and sympathies for vaporizing your country. Unfortunatly, while attempting to help save the world from future nuclear calamities, we accidently detonated all your nuclear warheads. We hope that this will not cause you any inconvenience, and we look forward to a prosperous trade relationship with your country at the conclusion of your nuclear winter.

Sincerly,

-George W Bush

Re:Dear North Korea

[mythr]

That's obviously a forgery. Our president could never write something that eloquent. ;)

Re:Dear North Korea

[NeoSkandranon]

PS: All your base are belong to us.

Use the Source, Luke...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Read the original scientific paper here

Estimated cost is $100 billion+

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Not $100 million+ in /. header

All I could think of was Dr. Brown.

[BoomerSooner]

1.21 Gigawatts!!!!

Irradiating nukes

[Muhammar]

Shining a strong neutron source (in this case generated by neutrino beam passing through earth) on fission material would generate radioactivity and heat effect. The radioactivity would be much higher than the heat, so people around would see blue light and start dying right away.

Bombs would not go off, because the assembly of the core is always subcritical. Even if the high explosives of the implosion device goes off (because of the heat or fire, for example), the spontaneous nuclear explosion is very unlikely. These shaped charges in the implosion design have to be set off from a precise starting point at exactly same time. [Setting of the "implosion lenses" of the implosion device simultanneously was one of the major technical hurdles of the Fat Man development]

And, honestly I do not believe that such a strong neutron source could be realised using a neutrino beam.

Re:Irradiating nukes

[sigwinch]

And even if you could build it, how do you aim it? You can't exactly gimbal a 1000 km ring.

And how do you lock onto the targets? If you can get a conventional radiation detector close enough, you might as well just send in the Marines to pick up the nuke. You can't use neutrinos to detect them because (1) detector efficiency is abysmal and (2) fission reactors and the sun provide a tremendous background signal.

And suppose you do somehow build an aimable neutrino beam. What happens if a rogue operator points it at a fission reactor? You're right that it almost certainly cannot ignite the pit of a bomb because the storage configuration has a low reactivity. Reactors, on the other hand, operate near unity reactivity. I don't know enough about reactor physics to say what is possible, but I'd be very worried that the neutrino beam could liberate enough unexpected heat to put the reactor in a positive temperature coefficient of reactivity regime. Boom. Like the Chernobyl disaster, but potentially much bigger.

Gotta love /.

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

After reading 36 of 46 comments, largely from folks saying "I have no clue about any of this, but what about ]blah[", I got the following tagline at the bottom:
It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.

Who knew /usr/games/fortune was so smart?

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