What's Being Done About Nuclear Security

KrisCowboy writes "Wired.com has an interesting article about Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's speech about the defensive measures being taken at the Nuclear Energy warehouses. 'Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads,' he promises. Keeping in mind the recent Slashdot story about a Hafnium bomb, more security measures are needed, and fast."

Comments

Whatever

[acxr is wasted]

'Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads,'

Hmph, to put it where exactly?

Re:Whatever

[Allen Zadr]

I was thinking exactly the same thing. Everyone has the same battle-cry, "Not in MY state."

Of course, it could stay in New Mexico, but they don't want it either. Well, I guess it's time to talk about sending it into the Sun!

Re:Whatever

[HolyCoitus]

I guess the perceived difference being that someplace else would not be vulnerable to one of the countries many enemies accessing it? Because, you're right, it's not like we can just make the waste magically vanish. It has to go somewhere.

Re:Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

It would go from a small problem of a potential terror target to a large one if we moved it haphazardly (and some went up missing). This kind of thing takes time. But the worst thing that we can do is try to rush it because its a target (this isn't an excuse to sit on it forever though).

Re:Whatever

[AKAImBatman]

So are you saying that if the Chalenger or a similar spacecraft were to explode with nuclear material on board there would be no danger?

That depends. If it was carrying something like an RTG, then no, no danger. RTGs are packed in nearly indestructible casings that have been tested in multiple launch failures.

If it were carrying unprotected nuclear materials, then there is a danger of it raining down and causing several cases of cancer. However, I can't think of any reason for the shuttle to do this. Even if it did, the shuttle's trajectory takes it over the ocean so that the likeliness of human injury is as low as possible.

If the Challenger were carrying a bomb, then the above danger might apply. There's also the theoretical chance of an accidental detonation, but it's far lower than the chances of the bomb failing to explode when activated.

Does that answer your question?

Ironically...

[unterderbrucke]

Atomic weapons storage being centralized will probably increase rather than decrease risk of terrorism.

Re:Ironically...

[Zordak]

No, the only danger is that if somebody does breach security, they would have access to more material. With lots of sites, there are lots of different security systems, meaning more potential points of failure. It's not like it's a distributed system where you have to get all of the material for it to be useful. By consolidating, you reduce your number of potential points of failure and have a single system to concentrate on. Think about it, if you have some highly-critical data, and somebody getting any of it is pretty much as bad as somebody getting all of it, would you rather have it sitting on one computer that you lock down like crazy, or on a couple of hundred that you have to try to lock down individually?

Transportation?

[stefanlasiewski]

Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads ... and transported thousands of miles across America's vulnerable road system, which are vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

IP on one side, "security" on another

[Thinkit4]

Well you can't launch model rockets now without a permit because of "national security". You can't use a computer because of "intellectual property". From libertarian we come, to libertarian we'll come back! Soon we'll listen to the latest audio files on our computer while tinkering with the latest thing that makes a big boom.

Re:fearmongering

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Countries like, but not neccesarily limited to Pakistan, Iran, former USSR, India and so on are far more of a risk in this respect than the US.

You think India -- the world's largest democracy (in terms of population) and a generally civilised and well-educated society -- is a security risk because they (may) have nuclear weapons? Would it be inappropriate at this point to remind you which is the only country in the world ever to have dropped one for real, and also the country that supplied a rather large proportion of the serious firepower so-called rogue states now possess?

Re:An interesting story

[UrgleHoth]

As I understand it, this is the first tier of security for sensitive sites (even before getting to any physical barriers). This is why I think even if there were centralized storage of nuclear material/weapons, that the risk if general contamination by ground vehicle bombing is very low. Also there are SUAs (special use airspace) labelled prohibited which do not allow ANY unauthorized travel.

Hafnium Bomb.

[ripragged]

The most important thing we could do about nuclear security is to educate the public on the real dangers of nuclear radiation. Radiation in large doses is dangerous. The most likely dirty bombs will not result in large doses, but mass panic. The panic will be far more dangerous than the radiation in most cases. I work with radioactive material for a living. I don't know the ins and outs of a Hafnium Bomb, but I know that once the radioactive material is dispersed by an explosion, it starts being less of a hazard immediately. Panic is the most dangerous aspect for those not in the immediate vicinity of any detonation. Increased security is important, but it is harder to wreak terror in an informed group. email me at raymeyers13@mac.com

What George Orwell wrote in 1946

[dpbsmith]

In a 1946 essay entitled "You and the Atom Bomb," George Orwell wrote:

Considering how likely we all are to be blown to pieces by it within the next five years, the atomic bomb has not roused so much discussion as might have been expected. The newspapers have published numerous diagrams, not very helpful to the average man, of protons and neutrons doing their stuff.... But curiously little has been said, at any rate, in print, about the question that is of most urgent interest to all of us, namely, "How difficult are these things to manufacture?" ...Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralized police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a 'peace that is no peace.'"

George Orwell,Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, vol 4, item #2