[RD] What happens if nuclear technology becomes public?

[civvver]

I knew that countries like South Korea and Japan could easily develop nukes if they wanted to (they're called "nuclear latency states"), but I assumed that Iran and North Korea had really backwards physics programs. I mean, countries are BIG. You're telling me they couldn't disguise the nuke production center as something innocuous in a sparsely populated corner of the country?



Yeah, let's assume it's this.

Iran didn't have the centrifuges to enrich uranium. The inspections the un nuclear council or whatever it's called are supposed to do are to make sure they aren't enriching enough uranium to make weapons, and only enough for power plants. I don't know how you make a distinction but there is one apparently.

North Korea I thought the issue was missile tech. They aren't just trying to make a bomb, they're trying to build an ICBM. They don't have the software guidance systems for their missiles, apparently that software is really complex and the calculations complex or something.

 

[Silurian]

Not sure how advanced their guidance would have to be
The calculations used to be done by hand.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_kjohnson.html

 

[uppi]

Iran didn't have the centrifuges to enrich uranium. The inspections the un nuclear council or whatever it's called are supposed to do are to make sure they aren't enriching enough uranium to make weapons, and only enough for power plants. I don't know how you make a distinction but there is one apparently.

The distinction is low-enriched uranium versus highly enriched uranium. The former can be used for power plants, but to make a nuclear weapon you would need the latter. With close monitoring of the centrifuges, it is certainly possible to verify they not making any weapons-grade uranium.

The danger is not so much in existing nuclear technology, because everyone knows what to watch out for. It is rather in potential new technology that could be hidden much easier.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I knew that countries like South Korea and Japan could easily develop nukes if they wanted to (they're called "nuclear latency states"), but I assumed that Iran and North Korea had really backwards physics programs. I mean, countries are BIG. You're telling me they couldn't disguise the nuke production center as something innocuous in a sparsely populated corner of the country?

Industrial centrifuges of the sort used in enriching Uranium are pretty specific, and so are the components to make one. So you can't just repurpose a pipe factory out in BFE and start enriching Uranium. When you start searching the world market for centrifuges, or centrifuge components, and shipping them to your repurposed factory pretty much everyone is gonna know it and just follow the trail out to BFE.

A software package that allowed me to 3D print a jury-rigged uranium enrichment machine and a reactor.

At last report 3D printers are great for making things out of plastic. High pressure vessels generally aren't made of plastic. I think we can safely ignore the prospect of 3D printing industrial centrifuges and/or reactors.

 

[Cutlass]

Essentially anyone who wants to know how to make a nuclear bomb has know how to do so for the past 50 or 60 years. No one who has ever attempted to explode a nuclear weapon has ever failed. Bus, as stated, the resources needed to get there are the stumbling block, not the tech.

 

[Senethro]

Can you imagine the surveillance society we'd live in if fission was a garden shed technology.

 

[Ajidica]

Essentially anyone who wants to know how to make a nuclear bomb has know how to do so for the past 50 or 60 years. No one who has ever attempted to explode a nuclear weapon has ever failed. Bus, as stated, the resources needed to get there are the stumbling block, not the tech.

Depends on how you categorize the Vela Incident with regards to Israel or South Africa.

Anyhow, to answer the OP it depends what type of technical information was made public. Physics knowledge wouldn't do much. The physics are pretty fundamental to any radiation/high energy physicist and were largely made public right after the war in the Smyth Report. Give me a day on the internet and I could get back to you with a complete description of shapes and enrichment amounts needed for a nuclear device (uranium or plutonium). The most famous part of the Manhattan Project -the physics as Los Alamos- was in many ways the easiest part of the Manhattan Project.* The stuff that was not revealed in the Smyth Report was all the really tricky stuff, like getting the explosive lenses to fire just right alongside figuring out how to shape the core and criticality tests. That is still the stuff that remains deeply classified.
As far as its effects if it was released to the public, I doubt it will do much. The major nuclear armed states already know that information. The nuclear armed NATO countries and the Russians likely all know the same stuff. It is less clear as applied to China, Israel, India, and Pakistan though. Enrichment is very expensive and definitely not something that can be done in some mountain cave. The two main enrichment locations, Oak Ridge and Hanford, were BIG. Like, really BIG.

(The site is down right now, but the blog Nuclear Secrecy has some great articles on the sheer size of the enrichment plants.)


*IIRC from mid 1943 we knew the uranium bomb in a gun type configuration would work. It was decided that as long as so much cash and resources was being invested, they might as well get a plutonium bomb too. Also, IIRC, plutonium is easier to enrich than uranium as plutonium can be enriched in reactor.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Why? Heck, why not just repurpose a missile construction facility or something?

Missile production and uranium enrichment/bomb production have almost nothing in common.

The purpose dictates the layout of a building - and especially so with uranium enrichment. It's fairly obvious from space what a building like that is being used for - and more so by the absurd amounts of power that such a facility requires.

As has been pointed out here already, the knowledge to make a basic bomb is not particularly secret anymore. The knowledge it takes to acquire the materials to make the bombs is also well understood. But it's the sheer amount of resources that must go into the endeavor, and the very specific things you need to do it that give it away.

Al Qaeda can't build a bomb in a cave. North Korea can build all the bombs they want but not really in secret. There was a time where they fooled inspectors into believing they had not restarted production but the key things are that they didn't fool them long and the inspectors already knew they had the capability.

edit: crosspost with @Ajidica

Iran didn't have the centrifuges to enrich uranium. The inspections the un nuclear council or whatever it's called are supposed to do are to make sure they aren't enriching enough uranium to make weapons, and only enough for power plants. I don't know how you make a distinction but there is one apparently.

North Korea I thought the issue was missile tech. They aren't just trying to make a bomb, they're trying to build an ICBM. They don't have the software guidance systems for their missiles, apparently that software is really complex and the calculations complex or something.

Iran did have centrifuges. That's where stuxnet came in - the computer virus (planted by US and Israeli intelligence) caused the centrifuges to overspeed and blow themselves up systematically. This is settled fact.

North Korea has the ability to produce nuclear weapons and missiles. Their guidance systems are fine - the sticking points are re-entry vehicles and weapon miniaturization. They recently demonstrated re-entry IIRC and miniaturization is just a matter of time.

Industrial centrifuges of the sort used in enriching Uranium are pretty specific, and so are the components to make one. So you can't just repurpose a pipe factory out in BFE and start enriching Uranium. When you start searching the world market for centrifuges, or centrifuge components, and shipping them to your repurposed factory pretty much everyone is gonna know it and just follow the trail out to BFE.


At last report 3D printers are great for making things out of plastic. High pressure vessels generally aren't made of plastic. I think we can safely ignore the prospect of 3D printing industrial centrifuges and/or reactors.

Rocket engines are now being 3D printed. Both the Rapter and BE-4 (the two most powerful rocket engines in testing) are largely 3D printed, as is the Super Draco.

3D printing has drawbacks but it is no longer relegated to cheap plastic. It is a truly game changing technology. Though I don't see any particular application for nuclear weapons production where it provides huge advantages.

Edit:
But probably to you bigger point, 3D printing (like lasers before it) is seen as the end-all be-all technology that can do anything which is certainly not true.

 

[r16]

The Taliban used to have fighter jets. ISIS took over an area the size of Syria. I'm sure some groups will have the resources.

taliban was the de facto goverment of Afghanistan , preferred by the US of A and actively aided by Pakistan . Which happens to have some stick and rudder skills as far as the phrase goes .

as for OP , ı would say it's about resources not secrets . Iranians obviously know everything about Uranium enrichment and have tried long but yet do not have the bomb . Because Infrastructure matters a lot . Give me 50 kilograms of proper weapon grade Uranium or Plutonium and ı will give you a mushroom , despite being an idiot all my life .

 

[Sommerswerd]

It seems like the real question the OP is asking is "what would happen if any random person could get nukes as easily as guns?"... the correct answer of course being "people would get nuked on a regular basis and we'd all be dead by now"

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It seems like the real question the OP is asking is "what would happen if any random person could get nukes as easily as guns?"... the correct answer of course being "people would get nuked on a regular basis and we'd all be dead by now"

True story

 

[Farm Boy]

Which is why we should be crapping our pants about biological weapons, probably, instead. Rocket Man has nukes in vogue again, but aren't they primarily the nightmare of old men at this point? The future has far more terrifying demons.

 

[civvver]

Missile production and uranium enrichment/bomb production have almost nothing in common.

The purpose dictates the layout of a building - and especially so with uranium enrichment. It's fairly obvious from space what a building like that is being used for - and more so by the absurd amounts of power that such a facility requires.

As has been pointed out here already, the knowledge to make a basic bomb is not particularly secret anymore. The knowledge it takes to acquire the materials to make the bombs is also well understood. But it's the sheer amount of resources that must go into the endeavor, and the very specific things you need to do it that give it away.

Al Qaeda can't build a bomb in a cave. North Korea can build all the bombs they want but not really in secret. There was a time where they fooled inspectors into believing they had not restarted production but the key things are that they didn't fool them long and the inspectors already knew they had the capability.

edit: crosspost with @Ajidica


Iran did have centrifuges. That's where stuxnet came in - the computer virus (planted by US and Israeli intelligence) caused the centrifuges to overspeed and blow themselves up systematically. This is settled fact.

North Korea has the ability to produce nuclear weapons and missiles. Their guidance systems are fine - the sticking points are re-entry vehicles and weapon miniaturization. They recently demonstrated re-entry IIRC and miniaturization is just a matter of time.

What's a re-entry vehicle? I assumed the issue was plotting the re-entry but is it more the materials used to survive re-entry?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The re-entry vehicle is the capsule that allows something to go from Mach 25+ in space, down through the atmosphere. The process of re-entry generates a metric crapton of heat which has to be dealt with or else your bomb gets melted. The re-entry vehicle also provides terminal guidance (steering) for all but the most primitive of missiles.

 

[Mouthwash]

Which is why we should be crapping our pants about biological weapons, probably, instead. Rocket Man has nukes in vogue again, but aren't they primarily the nightmare of old men at this point? The future has far more terrifying demons.

Probably not more terrifying than millions dead in an instant. Deterrence may have worked thus far, but it only has to fail once (leaving aside the possibility of state collapse).

 

[inthesomeday]

There’s obviously been a renewal of Cold War-style propaganda about nuclear weapons but as a member of the last generation I can say it really isn’t that effective. At least among everyone I’ve encountered we’re far more worried about, as Farm Boy says, biological and chemical weapons— but not those used by belligerent states, those pumped daily into the Earth by greedy people. Climate change is waaaaay scarier for most of us than nukes could ever be.

 

[Hrothbern]

There’s obviously been a renewal of Cold War-style propaganda about nuclear weapons but as a member of the last generation I can say it really isn’t that effective. At least among everyone I’ve encountered we’re far more worried about, as Farm Boy says, biological and chemical weapons— but not those used by belligerent states, those pumped daily into the Earth by greedy people. Climate change is waaaaay scarier for most of us than nukes could ever be.

my guess as well...

still
on those biological weapons
I spoke recently an old school and college friend, full nerd, retired professor by now, and he is kind of hobbying with the origin of life and told me what all is possible by web shopping to make all kinds of RNA, DNA, clever peptides (small enzymes), etc.
Once you know what you want (the molecule), it is childs play to order or make it as long as the molecule is not too big.
way below the radar of intelligence agencies, because they cannot evaluate the data they could catch of the traffic

 

[Mouthwash]

There’s obviously been a renewal of Cold War-style propaganda about nuclear weapons but as a member of the last generation I can say it really isn’t that effective. At least among everyone I’ve encountered we’re far more worried about, as Farm Boy says, biological and chemical weapons— but not those used by belligerent states, those pumped daily into the Earth by greedy people. Climate change is waaaaay scarier for most of us than nukes could ever be.

 

[Lexicus]

Nukes are one of the reasons climate change scares me

 

[The_J]

Some interesting facts in this thread, nice.

Just to add to all the people saying that everything is public: Apparently you can even try to build your own nuclear reactor, other people have attempted it. See e.g.
http://www.bbc.com/news/10385853
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-reactor-in-his-kitchen-idUSTRE77343E20110804

Which is why we should be crapping our pants about biological weapons, probably, instead. Rocket Man has nukes in vogue again, but aren't they primarily the nightmare of old men at this point? The future has far more terrifying demons.

That depends a bit.
As already pointed out, you can (with enough money) buy everything you want, if you want to do something GMO. Some of it can be a bit expensive, but with a few thousand you might get all the material. But the point there is that biology is tremendously imprecise. One of our PhD students tries since 4 months to get a few genes working in a specific organism. And that is someone who has the necessary expertise and state of the art facilities. Someone in their garage might just fail.
And even then, if you're successfull, or if you just get something naturally dangerous (like you order e.g. Clostridium perfringens, which is somewhat dangerous; I actually thought of Clostridium botulinum, but seems you cannot order it; you could try to get the botox genes into another bacterium), then there's the necessity to upscale it (if you want to do more than a single small terrorist act), which is complicated. And if you don't have a proper lab, then there's also the danger of killing yourself.
While the rocketman could do that, al Quaida might be able to produce enough for a terrorist act, but not for big devastation.

The military is looking into this though.
A few years ago the swedish military had a research project, where they tried to distinguish based on epidemiological data if outbreaks of tularemia are natural or caused by something else.
So seems not to be complete nonsense.