Originally Posted by
ynvaser
I seem to recall that weapons-grade fissive material is harder to produce than it is to produce fuel for a nuclear reactor.
http://www.ccnr.org/plute.html
If you pay one guy per nuclear reactor to watch out for plutonium "harvest", you can pretty much keep an eye on the whole thing.
"The disadvantage of reactor-grade plutonium is not so much in the effectiveness of the nuclear weapons that can be made from it as in the increased complexity in designing, fabricating, and handling them."
^So "cheap" fissive material requires expertise and constant maintenance to make weapons from. Weapons-grade fissive material is hard to produce, therefore easier to keep track of.
Also from that piece;
"In short, reactor-grade plutonium is weapons-usable, whether by unsophisticated proliferators or by advanced nuclear weapon states. Theft of separated plutonium, whether weapons-grade or reactor-grade, would pose a grave security risk."
The (often off-site) secuirty in charge of securing these materials, also, overwhelmingly, don't realise they've been robbed until after the attack. This reports (
link) talks about 22 instances of theft and goes on to say;
"What we do not know, of course, is how many thefts may have occurred that were never detected; it is a sobering fact that nearly all of the stolen HEU and plutonium that has been seized over the years had never been missed before it was seized"
Nuclear non-proliferation, like I said before, is unenforceable. When you're talking about NSAs (non-state actors, not the security agency), it's doubly unenforceable. Everyone agrees that AQ and other groups with the motivation could create a dirty bomb easily. Dirty bombs (which you just hide in the back of a van) render large areas uninhabitable. Nuclear terrorism is very plausible and a major international security concern.
Last edited by Ele; Dec 19, 2014 at 08:46 AM.