Weapons buildings

Production facilities must protect information that could be useful to criminals and terrorists who intend to plan attacks on the site or steal hazardous materials for weapon building. Examples of site information that should be secured are ... 

Ember, L. R. Chemical Weapons Build up or Disarm , Chemical and Engineering News, 15 December 1980. 

Another safety issue to be considered which might be exacerbated in the reprocessing option is that the plutonium generated in power reactors, called reactor-grade plutonium because it is made up of a variety of plutonium isotopes, contains plutonium-241, which is subject to spontaneous fission (8). The mixture of isotopes makes it extremely difficult to build an effective nuclear weapon. However, an explosive device could be built using this mixture if control of detonation is sacrificed (48). 

Cost and Value of Plutonium. The cost of building all U.S. nuclear weapons has been estimated as 378 biUion in 1995 dollars (24). If half of this sum is attributed to U.S. weapons-grade plutonium production (- lOOt), the cost is 1.9 x 10 /kg of weapons-grade Pu. Some nuclear weapons materials (Be, enriched U, Pu) also have value as a clandestine or terrorist commodity. The economic value of reactor-grade plutonium as a fuel for electric power-producing reactors has depended in the past on the economic value of pure 235u... 

The earliest tables were compiled from data collected from nuclear weapon tests, in which very high yield devices produced sharp-peaked shock waves with long durations for the positive phase. However, these data are used for other types of blast waves as well. Caution should be exercised in application of these simple criteria to buildings or structures, especially for vapor cloud explosions, which can produce blast waves with totally different shapes. Application of criteria from nuclear tests can, in many cases, result in overestimation of structural damage. 

It IS often stated that unclear fusion tvill produce no radioactive hazard, but this is not correct. The most likely fuels for a fusion reactor would be deuterium and radioactive tritium, which arc isotopes of hydrogen. Tritium is a gas, and in the event of a leak it could easily be released into the surrounding environment. The fusion of deuterium and tritium produces neutrons, which would also make the reactor building itself somewhat radioactive. However, the radioactivity produced in a fusion reactor would be much shorter-lived than that from a fission reactor. Although the thermonuclear weapons (that use nuclear fusion), first developed in the 1950s provided the impetus for tremendous worldwide research into nuclear fusion, the science and technology required to control a fusion reaction and develop a commercial fusion reactor are probably still decades away. 

May. The nuclear arms race ends—for the first time since 1945, the United States builds no nuclear weapons. 

THE INTERESTS OF MILITARY AND POLITICAL CIRCLES PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN PESTICIDE PRODUCTION, AS THEY WISH TO MAINTAIN AND BUILD BASES TO DEVELOP AND PRODUCE CHEMICAL WEAPONS. 

Yield Strength of a nuclear weapon, usually expressed in tons of TNT. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 had a yield of approximately 15,000 tons (15 kilotons) of TNT. Modern high-yield weapons have yields >1000 kilotons of TNT. The 4000 lb ammonium nitrate bomb used to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995 was equivalent to about 1.5 tons (0.0015 kilotons) of TNT. 

For the purpose of this discussion, radiological materials that could be used in a terrorist attack are divided into three categories (1) bomb-grade nuclear material, (2) nuclear reactor fuel and associated waste products, and (3) industrial sources. Bomb-grade nuclear material includes concentrated plutonium and/or highly enriched uranium (>20% U-235) that may be used to build a nuclear weapon, assuming a terrorist group cannot or has not already secured an assembled weapon. 

Chapter 4 described methods for limiting the time of exposure to weapons of mass destruction that utilize no explosives (e.g., aerosol delivery) or use of conventional explosives (e.g., dirty bomb). The basic procedure is to leave the contaminated area as quickly as possible, enter a nearby building to shelter against airborne contamination, remove soiled articles of clothing, and wash all exposed body parts (including the mouth and hair) as soon as possible. In Chapter 4, the time factor is applied primarily to limit the chances of potential future health effects. In this section, the time factor is applied after a nuclear explosion to prevent serious bodily harm and death. 

If a terrorist attack occurs near an occupied home or office building, the building can provide some level of protection from weapons of mass destruction, assuming its structural integrity is still intact and no imminent danger of fire is present. However, the purity of the air within the building must be maintained. This can be accomplished by ... 

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