Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Risks of Nuclear Terrorism Rise


Nuclear terrorism: Yet another reason the risks of nuclearity exceed the benefits:
Alissa J. Rubin and Milan Schreuer (2016, March 25). Belgium Fears Nuclear Plants Are Vulnerable. The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/world/europe/belgium-fears-nuclear-plants-are-vulnerable.html?emc=edit_th_20160326&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=32962000 

The investigation into this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels has prompted worries that the Islamic State is seeking to attack, infiltrate or sabotage nuclear installations or obtain nuclear or radioactive material. This is especially worrying in a country with a history of security lapses at its nuclear facilities, a weak intelligence apparatus and a deeply rooted terrorist network…. While the prospect that terrorists can obtain enough highly enriched uranium and then turn it into a nuclear fission bomb seems far-fetched to many experts, they say the fabrication of some kind of dirty bomb from radioactive waste or byproducts is more conceivable. There are a variety of other risks involving Belgium’s facilities, including that terrorists somehow shut down the privately operated plants, which provide nearly half of Belgium’s power....

4 comments:

  1. It is always interesting when the NYT presents old news as though it had just dawned on people that something was a problem. Ideally it would be the other way around where the NYT alerted people to something that almost no one had thought of. Science and technology have so inundated the world with dangers that there is hardly an end to it. We have barely begun to consider the problems with electro magnetic pollution. What are cell phones doing to children--and wireless? So far glyphosate is something that Congress just can not see itself to banning; and we may have to be down to our last honey bee before anything seriously is done. This does seem like the result of mindless evil just flowing freely in the USA due to ignorance and greed.

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  2. New and old echnology based on mass production and consumption is not the answer. Most of it is fake like nuclear. Honey bee deaths are from neonicotinoids.Neonicotnoids are ling acting insecticides that last a month and kill bee eggs and larva. They are on seeds and flowers you by from home depot etc. Neonicotinoids are also the stuff we use on our dogs and cats to stop fleas month to month and in our flower gardens and for termits. We are the largestbpart of the problem. Radionucleides are the second greatest threat to bees.

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  3. When Trinity occurred in the early summer of 1945 I believe a door was opened which can not be shut. Scientists were conducting an experiment which need not have been done. The war was virtually over.
    Some, perhaps all, were uncertain as to what would happen. Would a chain reaction begin that would destroy the planet? In spite of that their curiosity prevailed and the bomb went off. It could be argued that these scientists were not responsible. They were willing to risk the planet to see what would happen. Since then scientist have found other means for destroying life on this planet. While it would be nice if there were laws or ethics, but they have never stopped people in the past. So now the door is wide open for scientists to experiment with all of us. Synthetic life. Generic engineering. New types of bombs. It is hard to imagine the earth as a viable habitation having much longer to go.
    The attitude towards nuclear war has become more casual with calculations of a nation surviving such a thing being tossed out. Mad scientists who have gotten hold of their material and will not stop trying this and that. In any case there is no going back to before the door was opened. And just as Trinity led to terrible destruction in Japan the next big experiment may lead to whole nations disappearing due to a genetically designed disease.

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