600-plus pounds of Plutonium missing

LOS ALAMOS
Plutonium could be missing from lab
600-plus pounds unaccounted for, activist group says

San Francisco Chronicle

has this already been posted and I missed it? I couldn't find it any ware.

This is major stuff here. The first bomb dropped in WWII had 13 pounds in it. this is a total of 661 pounds of weapons grade plutonium. Thats enough to make a lot of major bombs. If its broke up and powered it can be made into possibly 100000 dirty bombs. It could be the end for not only this country but a lot of others as well. Or and what ime hoping for is it was just crappy book keeping

Mod Edit: Fixed Spelling in link

[edit on 12/3/05 by FredT]

Originally posted by aristoi
If its broke up and powered it can be made into possibly 100000 dirty bombs.

Good thing dirty bombs aren't anymore effective than the conventional explosives used to detonate them, then

This is most likely a misunderstanding of some sort, a hoax, or then it might be the material the government will use in it's next "terrorist attacks."

Anyway, good find.

This is too scary! I think I will not be surprised at another 9/11-scale catastrophy in the near future...

I certainly hope it's a misunderstanding.

Who is "an activist group"?

So many questions!

600 pounds wow add that to the several missing warheads out of the russian provinces and the suitcase bombs they have been missing unaccounted for.
Now we are living in a world were hundreds of thousands of people can be vaporized instantanously. By the highest bidder or most sinister mind.
Of course it could all be more scare tactics.

I'm sure it's some paperwork anomaly being exploited by an antinuclear activist group to scare people/get attention.

There's been some incidents with classified information leaking out of these labs and spying, but I can't imagine anyone being able to smuggle 600 lbs. of plutonium out. You can't just throw that together on a truck, it'll go critical and explode.

how do you loose 600lb's of plutonium exactly?

This is either an error, scare tactics or the plutonium was intentionally "misplaced".

Who knows.

It was at Los Alamos that they "lost" a hard drive or some such and it later turned up. Los Alamos has one major problem, The University of California. I thought that issue had been cleared up, but apparently I was wrong. Even if the materials are eventually accounted for, this is a huge problem.

Feds deny plutonium missing from lab

The federal government has shot down allegations that plutonium is missing from Los Alamos National Laboratory, as claimed by a nuclear-watchdog group earlier this week.

“We don’t think anything’s missing,” spokesman Don Ami of the National Nuclear Security Administration said. “We just think there’s a discrepancy.”

There are two different databases used to track plutonium and plutonium waste, and different rules, or reporting requirements, for each, Ami explained.

Officials with the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research came to Northern New Mexico on Wednesday and issued a report that called for the lab to do a better job tracking plutonium, the highly radioactive material used in nuclear bombs.

That report said an analysis of government documents showed “major discrepancies” among U.S. Department of Energy accounts of plutonium, and as many as 1000 kilograms could be missing.

Ami said this same issue has been dealt with about a year ago. “The report that was compiled that they’re referring to today was a report that was finalized last year,” Ami said.

Lab officials “thought they had put that to rest,” he said.

The watchdog group’s report “compared two very different LANL databases,” the NNSA said in a written response. “Special nuclear material has been tracked since 1943 and has been safeguarded through the use of the Nuclear Materials Control and Accounting Database since 1968.”

But another database tracks nuclear waste, the NNSA explained. “The waste management database, which began collecting data in 1971, gathers information to ensure protection of health, safety and the environment,“ an agency release said.

Department of Energy orders outline how to collect information for each database, the NNSA statement continued. “The difference in the analysis and reporting requirements account for the discrepancies in the report,” the NNSA wrote.

And the plutonium embedded in waste — things like gloves and rags — can’t be extracted and used again, Ami said.

What!?! You mean we don't have a consistent system to track this stuff???

Certainly contradicts the statement from the spokesman for UC who said the New Mexico lab tracks nuclear material "to a minute quantity."

This is unbelievable.



[edit on 3-12-2005 by loam]

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I can't imagine anyone being able to smuggle 600 lbs. of plutonium out. You can't just throw that together on a truck, it'll go critical and explode.

You'd be suprised what can be hauled around in a truck... I took these pictures on a road trip a while back, the truck had no escorts, no security, etc.







Hittman, ironic name for a comapny hauling around Nuclear Materials...
www.duratekinc.com...

Originally posted by twitchy

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I can't imagine anyone being able to smuggle 600 lbs. of plutonium out. You can't just throw that together on a truck, it'll go critical and explode.

You'd be suprised what can be hauled around in a truck... I took these pictures on a road trip a while back, the truck had no escorts, no security, etc.Hey were those pics taken on I26 near Hendersonville, NC? That's right near my house.

How do you know those are nuclear materials?


[edit on 12/3/05 by FredT]

[edit on 12/3/05 by FredT]

[edit on 12/3/05 by FredT]

Well I don't know for sure but that's what Hittman specializes in hauling, and the container markings confirm the container type and the USA on the side of it would suggest this one was contracted to Uncle Sam, but I don't know that anything was in the truck at the time. Creepy feeling to be climbing up Saluda behind it nonetheless if that's the rinky dink little contraptions they haul that crap around in.

Originally posted by twitchy

I fail to see why you are so upset about this picture The canister is labled as "Empty"

Uh, look, the only way nuclear materials of any remarkable quantity are transported is by the D.O.E., it is seriously guarded and THAT is not an SST.

Please.

It doesn't upset me fred, it creeps me out. I know the truck is empty, well I know the sign says empty, but the alarming concept here for me is that we contract out the hauling of Nuclear Materials to a private company, and these trucks are riding around without so much as a co-driver. Since we are apparently swimming with international constiuents, 'art students' and the like, shouldn't these materials be handled with a little more attention to security measures? I'm just a Shmoe with a camera, and it's that easy to get close to one of those trucks?

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Uh, look, the only way nuclear materials of any remarkable quantity are transported is by the D.O.E., it is seriously guarded and THAT is not an SST.
Please.

If you say so, but their website seems to indictate that they haul it around pretty regular TC.
www.duratekinc.com...

I actually saw a program about those containers on history channel. It wasa bout Yucca mountain. It was pretty good. Those flimsy looking containers can take A LOT of punishment. They are very safe. And Im sure theyre trackign them and can have security there if needbe.

Originally posted by truttseeker
I actually saw a program about those containers on history channel. It wasa bout Yucca mountain. It was pretty good. Those flimsy looking containers can take A LOT of punishment. They are very safe. And Im sure theyre trackign them and can have security there if needbe.

I think I saw that same show, among other things they hit it broad side with train and burned it in jet fuel and it handled both with no leak.

What they haul, I wouldn't be concerned about, Twitchy. The good stuff will have a minimum of three suburbans as escorts with couriers stuffed in them with a driver and shotgun rider in the cab of the tractor-trailer. Their firepower will be fairly impressive, and the security systems on the trailer will be pretty neat.
Bombs, bomb-making material or rodsfor nuclear energy won't be transported any other way.

Unless the DOE has lost all adult leadership. Surely, that wouldn't happen. Surely. Sorry, I mean Twitchy. Didn't mean to call you Surely.

That is nuclear material according to the USA/9168/B(U) number. The picture below is from the pdf at

rampac.com

Uhmm, hey guys did you happen to see where I set the plutonium ? I've been looking all around and can't seem to find it. Maybe Osama took it, I told him to leave those glow in the dark rocks alone.