ERRORS in rebuttal to "Pandora's Promise"

[PamW]

40. OH REALLY?????

bananas,

When did the watch marketers on Madison Avenue get the gig for defining the meaning of "resistant" when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation?

Don't you really love this "logic"?

The watch manufacturers essentially "hedge" their claims, as many businesses do in our overly litigious society; against the possibility that someone will put on one of their watches and dive to some great depth. So instead of saying "water proof"; they say "water resistant".

Now the anti-nukes find it CONVENIENT to dredge up this "definition".

By what "logic" has it been mandated that the usage of the word "resistant" in the nuclear non-proliferation community has to adhere to the "standards" set by 1960s TV marketing commercials for Timex watches?

I think we've plumbed new depths of ABSURDITY.

How is the link provided in ANY WAY RELEVANT to the issue of nuclear non-proliferation?

If one is willing to be open minded; it is really quite easy to explain.

The Manhattan Project developed 2 basic designs for nuclear weapons; "gun-assembled" ( Little Boy / Hiroshima ) and "implosion" ( Fat Man / Nagasaki )

Because of effects of the isotope Plutonium-240 which is present in even "weapons-grade" Plutonium from Hanford; the "gun assembled" method can NOT be used when Plutonium, even weapons grade is slated as the bomb fuel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design

Gun assembly: one piece of fissile uranium is fired at a fissile uranium target at the end of the weapon, similar to firing a bullet down a gun barrel, achieving critical mass when combined.
Implosion: a fissile mass of either material (U-235, Pu-239, or a combination) is surrounded by high explosives that compress the mass, resulting in criticality.

The implosion method can use either uranium or plutonium as fuel. The gun method only uses uranium. Plutonium is considered impractical for the gun method because of early triggering due to Pu-240 contamination and due to its time constant for prompt critical fission being much shorter than that of U-235.

Plutonium can be used with the implosion system because as its developer Manhattan Project scientist Seth Neddermeyer put it; the implosion system assembles in 3 dimensions while the gun assembly system only assembles in 1 dimension ( along the gun barrel ). Therefore, the implosion system is about 3 times faster in assembly.

However, what happens if the amount of Pu-240 contamination is increased? The effects of Pu-240 contamination increase with the percentage of Pu-240 until the effect is large enough that even the implosion system can't compensate.

The IFR was designed to optimize the burning of Pu-239 which is the isotope that is bomb fuel; and with the presence of Pu-240 and other actinides ( see the paper by Professor Benoit Forget of MIT referenced herein ); the effects of Pu-240 and other actinides make even implosion type nuclear weapons INOPERABLE with bomb fuel with the level of actinide contamination found in spent IFR fuel.

The IFR reactor was specifically designed with that behaviour in mind; in order to forestall using spent IFR fuel as nuclear weapons fuel. Argonne National Lab reactor designers succeeded in achieving that design goal.

Again, the fact that IFR fuel can NOT be used as nuclear weapons fuel was certified to the US Congress in a report issued 2 decades ago when the US Congress was debating the continued funding of the project. That report was authored by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Those scientists are the true experts in nuclear weapons design, since they designed the nuclear weapons in the USA's own nuclear stockpile.

I can't understand why the anti-nukes want to be "science deniers"; in every way the kindred spirits of "climate deniers"; and they have now resorted to the absurdity of claiming that the meaning of words used in the nuclear non-proliferation community are some how to be constrained in usage by how those same words were used in marketing watches on TV.

I guess when all the SCIENCE and FACTS are against you; those are the levels to which some will stoop.

If I were on the wrong side of the FACTS; I'd rather say NOTHING; than promulgate NONSENSE which would impugn my credibility.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW