Lost Cause
It's a wrap!
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2001
- Posts
- 30,949
Okay, for a civilization that is heralded for efficiency, this looks really fucking sloppy. Whatta ya think, North Korea or Iraq? Comments?
Japan on Tuesday admitted that 206kg of its plutonium - enough to make about 25 nuclear bombs - is unaccounted for.
Government scientists said that 6,890kg of plutonium had been extracted since 1977 from spent nuclear fuel at a processing plant about 120km north east of Tokyo. But that is 3 per cent short of the amount the plant was estimated to have produced.
About 5kg to 8kg of plutonium are needed to make a 20-kiloton atomic bomb similar to the one that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945.
Experts said the missing amount was surprisingly large.
"This is an unusually large amount of plutonium to be unaccounted for, which makes me uncomfortable, although I think it's highly unlikely that it was stolen," said Tatsujiro Suzuki, senior research scientist at the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry.
The science ministry, which reported the discrepancy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), dismissed the idea that the plutonium had been stolen. It said about 90kg was probably diluted into waste-water and about 30kg probably dissolved into other elements.
(This is good???? And where is that waste water? No wonder the picked Japan for the radioactive monster craze?-L.C.)
www.Ft.com
Japan on Tuesday admitted that 206kg of its plutonium - enough to make about 25 nuclear bombs - is unaccounted for.
Government scientists said that 6,890kg of plutonium had been extracted since 1977 from spent nuclear fuel at a processing plant about 120km north east of Tokyo. But that is 3 per cent short of the amount the plant was estimated to have produced.
About 5kg to 8kg of plutonium are needed to make a 20-kiloton atomic bomb similar to the one that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945.
Experts said the missing amount was surprisingly large.
"This is an unusually large amount of plutonium to be unaccounted for, which makes me uncomfortable, although I think it's highly unlikely that it was stolen," said Tatsujiro Suzuki, senior research scientist at the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry.
The science ministry, which reported the discrepancy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), dismissed the idea that the plutonium had been stolen. It said about 90kg was probably diluted into waste-water and about 30kg probably dissolved into other elements.
(This is good???? And where is that waste water? No wonder the picked Japan for the radioactive monster craze?-L.C.)
www.Ft.com
