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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.
And how is that a bad thing?
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.
It sounds like you think that might be a bad thing....
Only TWO weapons of this type have been used in war, by ONE country in ONE war which was over 70 years ago. We all know the affect this had, the loss of life it caused and the moral implications of having used the weapons. Why is it a bad thing to *limit* the number of countries which have the ability to cause such destruction? Especially in the case where the major countries that *have* such weapons have shown great restraint for nearly as long as the weapons have existed.
Like it or not, there ARE crazies out there that wouldn't use the same logic in their moral and ethical views, but would gladly use such weapons to their advantage. It only makes sense to go to great pains to prohibit proliferation of such weapons for the good of all. It's not about keeping the lessor nations under control, but protecting the planet from those who don't hold the same value of life that prevents such weapons from being used now.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
No not stupid at all, earth naturally produces 99 percent of antineutrinos detected while manmade sources 1 percent. Earth is the "noise" and reactors are pure 100% signal. distribution of spectrum of those particles (energy per particle) tells what proportion originated in plutonium vs. uranium fission.
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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Why is it a bad thing to *limit* the number of countries which have the ability to cause such destruction? Especially in the case where the major countries that *have* such weapons have shown great restraint for nearly as long as the weapons have existed.
When a country has nuclear weapons, the US stops meddling in its internal affairs and begins to treat it as an equal.
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.