When I studied chemistry at university, only a handful of select students were introduced to the nuclear science lab in the basement. It had a lot of spicy isotopes, neutron sources, etc. Even as a chemistry student with free run of the place for years I had no idea it was in the building until the department head pulled a few of us aside.
The reason for the informal secrecy, as it was explained to me, is that every so often someone would find out there was plutonium etc in the basement and have a public freak out, including on occasion other (non-STEM) professors at the same university. These people would try to organize crusades to get it shut down because evil. Intentionally obscuring its existence greatly mitigated this drama. They appreciated us continuing the tradition of keeping it out of sight and out of mind from the general public.
The publicity around this Kodak case was an example of why no one talks about nuclear labs. The public cannot be trusted to engage in a discussion about anything “nuclear” in good faith. There are quite a few areas of science like this.
This is just like how universities hide their animal research facilities. It wasn't until the final year of my biology degree that I found out we had a basement floor under our life sciences building where this research is carried out.
I visited a few times as part of a research project I was involved in, and that experience was one of the factors that put me off pursuing a career in biomedical research.
Climate activists backed and propagandized by the fossil fuel industry and the KGB.
And now that there are a number of barriers to creating new nuclear, the propaganda has flipped with fossil fuel companies supporting nuclear because they know it'll be decades before anything real can happen.
I have nothing against nuclear and if it can be built I'm for it. But at the moment, solar + battery is quick to deploy and about as cheap as you can get.
Same thing with animal testing. You don't get to know where the monkey labs are but the alternative is we test on poor people? learn to keep secrets, people.
What a neat device. Unlike those extra spicy, dangerous sources that say "drop and run" on them, this thing only runs when you line up the CF-252 with the HEU plates. It has an off switch to stop the cascade. Perfect for lab use.
> In 1975, Kodak powered up the country’s first californium neutron flux multiplier (CFX) ... to provide Kodak R&D with an ample stream of neutrons for materials analysis.
> If an X-ray shows you the crack in a pipe, neutrons will show you the leak.
There are no secrets in a legal sense e.g. NDAs. However, there is a culture around private nuclear labs of giving no hint of their existence so that they can hide in plain sight.
The objective is to avoid attention, not to be secret per se, though the effect can be similar.
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me?
> And aside from a license renewal snafu in 1980, the device made no waves until its existence was shared with the local newspaper—it wasn’t a secret, just unpublicized.
In this context "secret" implies they didn't tell the government. Merely not publicising an internal project is totally normal and doesn't warrant "secret project!!"
The license renewal has nothing to do with anything. It's not related to the incident where its existence was revealed. This is about "secret" vs "unpublicized", not "secret" vs "license renewal".
This matches other sources on the internet: a bomb requires about 15kg of U-235 [0] with a good use of neutron reflectors, and HEU by definition contains 20%+ of U-235 [1]. We don't know exactly what the U-235 concentration was in the Kodak device, but reasonable values would make the claim "roughly" correct.
Their SNM license was for “up to 93.5% enriched”[1] and their decommissioning plan describes them as MTR-type Al-clad plates. So I’d take a reasonable guess that these are at 93% nominal enrichment, like ATR and HFIR fuel plates.
When I studied chemistry at university, only a handful of select students were introduced to the nuclear science lab in the basement. It had a lot of spicy isotopes, neutron sources, etc. Even as a chemistry student with free run of the place for years I had no idea it was in the building until the department head pulled a few of us aside.
The reason for the informal secrecy, as it was explained to me, is that every so often someone would find out there was plutonium etc in the basement and have a public freak out, including on occasion other (non-STEM) professors at the same university. These people would try to organize crusades to get it shut down because evil. Intentionally obscuring its existence greatly mitigated this drama. They appreciated us continuing the tradition of keeping it out of sight and out of mind from the general public.
The publicity around this Kodak case was an example of why no one talks about nuclear labs. The public cannot be trusted to engage in a discussion about anything “nuclear” in good faith. There are quite a few areas of science like this.
This is just like how universities hide their animal research facilities. It wasn't until the final year of my biology degree that I found out we had a basement floor under our life sciences building where this research is carried out.
I visited a few times as part of a research project I was involved in, and that experience was one of the factors that put me off pursuing a career in biomedical research.
These public freak outs is also why we don't have abundant nuclear energy.
The climate activists of the 60s-90s stopped us from building more reactors, one of the cleanest sources of energy ever known.
Climate activists backed and propagandized by the fossil fuel industry and the KGB.
And now that there are a number of barriers to creating new nuclear, the propaganda has flipped with fossil fuel companies supporting nuclear because they know it'll be decades before anything real can happen.
I have nothing against nuclear and if it can be built I'm for it. But at the moment, solar + battery is quick to deploy and about as cheap as you can get.
Same thing with animal testing. You don't get to know where the monkey labs are but the alternative is we test on poor people? learn to keep secrets, people.
What a neat device. Unlike those extra spicy, dangerous sources that say "drop and run" on them, this thing only runs when you line up the CF-252 with the HEU plates. It has an off switch to stop the cascade. Perfect for lab use.
> In 1975, Kodak powered up the country’s first californium neutron flux multiplier (CFX) ... to provide Kodak R&D with an ample stream of neutrons for materials analysis. > If an X-ray shows you the crack in a pipe, neutrons will show you the leak.
It wasn't a secret like the article admits later on.
There are no secrets in a legal sense e.g. NDAs. However, there is a culture around private nuclear labs of giving no hint of their existence so that they can hide in plain sight.
The objective is to avoid attention, not to be secret per se, though the effect can be similar.
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me?
> And aside from a license renewal snafu in 1980, the device made no waves until its existence was shared with the local newspaper—it wasn’t a secret, just unpublicized.
In this context "secret" implies they didn't tell the government. Merely not publicising an internal project is totally normal and doesn't warrant "secret project!!"
I think "secret nuclear device" and "license renewal" are kind of conceptually incongruous, even if only at a surface level.
The license renewal has nothing to do with anything. It's not related to the incident where its existence was revealed. This is about "secret" vs "unpublicized", not "secret" vs "license renewal".
https://archive.ph/gb4Kj
> Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine trusting private corporations with the stuff atomic bombs are made of today.
Valar Atomics would like a word.
I'm getting "Windows Subsystem for Linux" vibes from the project name. Shouldn't this be called a HEUFX with a Californium source?
Quote: "and though it takes roughly 100 pounds of it to build an atomic bomb...”
Are they stupid at PM or just selling misinformation?
This matches other sources on the internet: a bomb requires about 15kg of U-235 [0] with a good use of neutron reflectors, and HEU by definition contains 20%+ of U-235 [1]. We don't know exactly what the U-235 concentration was in the Kodak device, but reasonable values would make the claim "roughly" correct.
[0] https://www.britannica.com/technology/nuclear-weapon/Princip...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium
Their SNM license was for “up to 93.5% enriched”[1] and their decommissioning plan describes them as MTR-type Al-clad plates. So I’d take a reasonable guess that these are at 93% nominal enrichment, like ATR and HFIR fuel plates.
[1] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0900/ML090080661.pdf
[2] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml0816/ML081690374.pdf
At least it wasn't "though it takes at least the equivalent of 12.5 bald eagles of it to build an atomic bomb"
The whole article is a journalistic nothingburger.