[jeffers]

This is the second similar report I’ve seen on this, but I believe both this and the earlier one cite the same source, because both specifically noted the absence of cooling towers on the overhead images of the facility.

I’ve worked in smaller test reactor facilities that did not require a cooling tower, a feature which is normally associated more with the steam turbine/cooling loops on the power side of production reactors than with test facility reactors where thermal energy extraction isn’t a priority.

Still, some form of fissionable material being onsite fits well with the following widely publicised aspects of the 9/6 IAF raid:

1. “Cement ship” (useful cover for shielding radiation emitters during transport)

2. “Soil samples” reported seized by IDF commandos before and after the raid

3. “Stun the world” and “WW-III” comments made after the raid, by a Netanyahu aide, an unnamed UK official, even President Bush

4. Syrian efforts to bury the site, with what appeared to me to be sand, after the raid. Certain sands contain significant quantities of boron, a neutron flux absorbant, and for this reason, helicopters dropped similar sands into the open reactor vessel at Chernobyl 4 after the reactor rapidly climbed out of its unstable “iodine well” just before a routine test and caused a LOCA event and explosion which displaced the biological shield, opening the pit to the outside world.

In simplest form then, we have two discussions, by one man, in two media outlets, speculating that plutonium, or at least fissionable material, was present at the Syrian facility, a conclusion which closely matches my own, however...

As this man is known by some as the “Father of Dimona”, it is reasonable to assume he has close contacts still in place with the cream of Israel’s nuclear community, at least some of whom would presumably have been involved in testing and identifying components present in any soil samples collected by IDF commandoes at the Syrian nuclear facility site.

Not conclusive, but compelling none the less.

[Dog]

1. “Cement ship” (useful cover for shielding radiation emitters during transport)

I never thought of shielding....we all puzzled over this shipment of "cement"..

Makes sense now.

[Diver Dave]

This is the second similar report I’ve seen on this, but I believe both this and the earlier one cite the same source, because both specifically noted the absence of cooling towers on the overhead images of the facility.

I’ve worked in smaller test reactor facilities that did not require a cooling tower, a feature which is normally associated more with the steam turbine/cooling loops on the power side of production reactors than with test facility reactors where thermal energy extraction isn’t a priority.

Exactly! FFTF had liquid sodium cooling and thus no familiar cooling towers associated with nuke power plants.