Can Terrorists Build the Bomb?

[ethics]

Good article from Popular Science on whether or not a terrorist can acquire raw materials and then build a nuke.

The short answer is yes, it's possible, but it's not as easy as many less informed claim it is.

Two metals can produce a mushroom cloud: uranium and plutonium. Uranium can be found in nature, though not in bomb-grade form. Uranium ore mined from the earth consists almost entirely of the relatively stable isotope U-238 and has only tiny amounts of the isotope U-235, which is highly fissile—it splits easily, releasing large amounts of energy.

Before it can be used in a bomb, uranium must be “enriched,” a process that sifts out nonfissile U-238 to increase the proportion of fissile U-235. The more the uranium has been enriched, the more fissile it becomes and the less is required to make a bomb. Scientists generally consider uranium consisting of more than 20 percent U-235 to be “highly enriched” and suitable for a bomb, although uranium used in advanced nuclear-weapons programs and some nuclear reactors is enriched as much as 90 percent.


<a href="http://www.popsci.com/popsci/generaltech/article/0,20967,1017201,00.html">The long story is here. </a>

[Copzilla]

That was a great read. Everyone who has a fatalist approach to the terrorist nuke threat should read it.

[mikepd]

The problem is that there are other ways to cause mega-death which do not need nuclear weapons. Everything from LNG carriers to chemicals, there are plenty of relatively low tech methods to do almost the same results.