WendyMcElroy.com
Why Obama is promising to lower nuclear warheads by 1/3My old poker buddy Brian C. highlights an insightful statement on the discussion forum that is aligned with this blog. [Referenced thread here.]
Brian C. writes, gdp is the resident physicist, and uber tech guy, at Wendy McElroy's group blog. At the end of the thread above, gdp identifies a fitting motive for our Noble Peace Prize winner's call for reducing the number of nuclear warheads.
gdp comments: Translation: The U.S. military is running short of Tritium, because their total supply of Tritium has been decaying with a halflife of 12.32 years ever since the DOE shut down the last remaining reactor in the U.S. capable of producing Tritium in bulk in 1988, about 2 years after the Chernobyl Accident. (It was the last remaining "Chernobyl-style" graphite-moderated reactor within the U.S., sited at Savanah River.) There is still some remaining Tritium production capacity using light-water moderated reactors, but light-water reactors are highly suboptimal for tritium production, since their neutron spectra have many fewer of the "fast neutrons" in their "epithermal tail" that are needed to efficiently breed Tritium from 7Li, the most abundant isotope of Lithium. So not surprisingly, this program has been less than successful.
When the U.S. supply of Tritium is no longer sufficient to refurbish and reload the triggers of all of the warheads in the U.S. arsenal, the warheads that cannot be refurbished become useless (but expensive!) doorstops. (Indeed, many U.S. warheads may already be useless (but expensive) doorstops!) Meanwhile, the Russians, who still have many remaining graphite-moderated reactors, can produce as much Tritium as they want.
So by "calling for a reduction by 1/3," the "Big O" surreptitiously and cynically buys the U.S. Military roughly 20 more years of "Nuclear Parity" with the Russians after the U.S. "Strategic Tritium Supply" runs short...
Brian C. continues, The ploy is pretty clever. If the Russians go for it, then the U.S. gets to maintain nuclear parity. If the Russians don't go for it, Our Glorious Leader gets to condemn them as war mongers.
Brian C. writes, gdp is the resident physicist, and uber tech guy, at Wendy McElroy's group blog. At the end of the thread above, gdp identifies a fitting motive for our Noble Peace Prize winner's call for reducing the number of nuclear warheads.
gdp comments: Translation: The U.S. military is running short of Tritium, because their total supply of Tritium has been decaying with a halflife of 12.32 years ever since the DOE shut down the last remaining reactor in the U.S. capable of producing Tritium in bulk in 1988, about 2 years after the Chernobyl Accident. (It was the last remaining "Chernobyl-style" graphite-moderated reactor within the U.S., sited at Savanah River.) There is still some remaining Tritium production capacity using light-water moderated reactors, but light-water reactors are highly suboptimal for tritium production, since their neutron spectra have many fewer of the "fast neutrons" in their "epithermal tail" that are needed to efficiently breed Tritium from 7Li, the most abundant isotope of Lithium. So not surprisingly, this program has been less than successful.
When the U.S. supply of Tritium is no longer sufficient to refurbish and reload the triggers of all of the warheads in the U.S. arsenal, the warheads that cannot be refurbished become useless (but expensive!) doorstops. (Indeed, many U.S. warheads may already be useless (but expensive) doorstops!) Meanwhile, the Russians, who still have many remaining graphite-moderated reactors, can produce as much Tritium as they want.
So by "calling for a reduction by 1/3," the "Big O" surreptitiously and cynically buys the U.S. Military roughly 20 more years of "Nuclear Parity" with the Russians after the U.S. "Strategic Tritium Supply" runs short...
Brian C. continues, The ploy is pretty clever. If the Russians go for it, then the U.S. gets to maintain nuclear parity. If the Russians don't go for it, Our Glorious Leader gets to condemn them as war mongers.
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