Analyzing smuggled uranium
MAR 17, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024166
The Economist : Between 1992 and 2007, according to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist Ian Hutcheon , 17kg of highly enriched uranium was seized from smugglers around the world, along with 400 grams of plutonium.In neither case is that enough for a proper atom bomb, but it is still worrying says the Economist .Presumably, more is out there. Even if it is not, the material that has been found could have been used to make a “radiological” weapon, by blowing it up and scattering it around a city using conventional explosives.Hutcheon is one of those charged with analyzing this captured material, to discover how dangerous it really is and where it came from.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
