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Antineutrino Detection Is About To Change the Game In Nuclear Verification (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: There may be a new option for the detection of illicit nuclear weapons programs worldwide: Antineutrino detection is an existing technology that, if political and diplomatic hurdles are overcome, could be put in place before the 10-year ban on Iranian enrichment R&D is lifted. Difficult to evade, antineutrino detection technology could allow the international community to reliably monitor a country's nuclear activities in real-time, potentially without setting foot in the country. Similar in cost and technological scale to the space-borne reconnaissance methods governments use for detection today, antineutrino detection could not only help identify undeclared nuclear reactors, but could monitor nuclear facilities and detonations throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Reminds me of the story by Isaac Asimov named "The Dead Past." A machine is invented that can see into the past using neutrinos. The government runs a huge version trying to look into the past. One man discovers that a very simple version can be made, and is being covered up by the government. He later realizes that there is a very good reason for this. The past includes one second ago, and the machine basically allows you to spy on anyone at any time. By releasing the plans, he eliminated any kind of privacy.
2) Keeping other countries from developing nuclear power is not a 'boot on the throat' A boot to the throat is both a threat to continued existence (breathing) and economic growth. Correction #2. change "boot to throat" to handcuffing their military ambitions.
3) The nuclear countries are not united, as can be seen by Russia's attack of US funded Syrians, and by China's continued support of North Korea. The idea that "they" do anything together is ignorant to say the least. The few people that US, Russia and China agree to threaten are extremely bad actors that no sane person would trust.
4) How much did you get paid to spread this disinformation? Or are you simply free-lancing for the terrorists?
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Sure, assuming you mean nuclear-powered submarines, and the technology is sufficiently refined. I'm not 100% certain on the properties of neutrinos versus antineutrinos (nor their detectors), but where neutrinos are concerned:
Pretty much every nuclear reaction releases neutrinos (and presumably antineutrinos), and nothing stops a significant percentage of them - as I recall a neutrino has something like a 50/50 chance of penetrating a light-year of lead. Build an omnidirectional neutrino detector with sufficient angular resolution and sensitivity anywhere on the planet and you can theoretically detect every significant nuclear reaction on the planet in essentially real time. That includes bursts from otherwise secret nuclear weapon test detonations, as well as being able to detect the instantaneous location and power output of every reactor on the planet, including those onboard submarines or in secret bunkers deep underground. So say goodbye to super-secret nuclear submarines slinking around the oceans - they'll now offer a constantly glowing beacon visible from around the world.
Of course there is significant noise from natural radioactive decay, I think someone above mentioned 99% of antineutrinos have natural sources, but natural sources also would tend to generate a fairly steady signal, so detecting new "hot spots" shouldn't be too terribly difficult. And if you built two or more such detectors on distant parts of the planet you could triangulate the position of the source to confirm whether it's near the surface of the planet (and thus likely human in origin), or from something deep underground (probably natural, unless there are nuclear-powered subterranean civilizations on the planet ;-) ) or in space (satellites, the sun, etc.) Though... I imagine the more planet you have to look through the more natural noise will be in the signal, so actually spotting reactors on the opposite side of the planet is likely to be a massive signal-processing challenge, if it's possible at all.
On the other hand if your goal is tracking nuclear *armed* submarines, that is far more difficult - nuclear weapons don't emit many neutrinos except when detonating, so stick them on an old-fashioned diesel submarine and they should be effectively invisible to the detectors we're likely able to build any time soon. Even nuclear-powered submarines might be able to hide for brief periods by simply powering-down their reactors. The less power being generated, the fainter their neutrino "glow", so if they should be able to hide from long-range detection as long as their batteries hold out. Though if sufficiently sensitive portable short-range detectors could be built then "submarine hunters" that got close enough might be able to detect the "glow" from the still-radioactive reactor vessel even if the primary reaction were completely stopped.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Actually what the article talks about are short range detectors which only have a range of a few hundred kilometres. A better solution would be a huge, scalable detector, perhaps an extension of the south polar IceCube experiment to really low, MeV energies, which could have global reach. Not only would the facility be capable of detecting any nuclear reactor or weapon test anywhere on the planet but you could do some really amazing astro-particle physics with it. We expect to get the neutrino mass hierarchy from just dropping the energy threshold to ~1GeV with PINGU, with lower thresholds you might even be able to consider using neutrinos to do a sort of CT-scan of the planet (possible because while neutrinos rarely interact with matter, matter does affect how they oscillate - something called the MSW effect).
Ultimately all such a facility does is prevent anyone from operating any nuclear reactor in secret. I would argue that this is not a bad thing at all. Countries can still develop and use nuclear power but they cannot do so without everyone knowing about it. It would also provide a completely impossible to defeat (short of sabotaging the detector) means of enforcing the nuclear test ban treaty.