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What's Being Done About Nuclear Security

Posted by timothy on from the here-catch dept.

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."

6 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Whatever by acxr+is+wasted · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    Hmph, to put it where exactly?

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  2. Ironically... by unterderbrucke · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Ironically... by Zordak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?

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  3. Transportation? by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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  4. Re:fearmongering by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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?

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  5. Hafnium Bomb. by ripragged · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

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