Parenthetically, why does Georgia have weapons-grade uranium in the first place?
It reminds me of another incident where there was a sting operation on some organized crime figures in Moldova who were caught trying to sell radiocative material to whom they thought were ISIS. Moldova is just where it happened, their nationalities in that case, were not Moldovans as I recall.
“Parenthetically, why does Georgia have weapons-grade uranium in the first place? “
About ten years ago a Russian/American friend got her mother in Moscow an ambulance ride and through the back door of a hospital in front of the queue for x-rays...for a bribe totaling $20US. Can you imagine how many ways that money got split? The ordinary people in the former Soviet Union are desperately poor.
I couldn’t find any evidence of nuclear power in Georgia. However, drugs manufactured in Columbia are sold by the train car load in the USA. A few pounds of uranium should be easier to smuggle than a boatload of cocaine.
One of the problems of incredibly valuable nuclear weapons or nuclear material in desperately poor places like Russia or Pakistan, is that at some point the rightful owner is trusting a few peasants to keep it safe.
A relative living in a guarded compound in the Philippines said, “Having guards 24 hours simply restricts the thievery to those thieves related to the guards.” I suspect that guarding nuclear materials in poor countries is much the same.
Just put them in a small room with $200mm worth of Uranium for a few hours. That'll teach 'em!
Because of the influx of New Yorkers into Florida?
“Parenthetically, why does Georgia have weapons-grade uranium in the first place?”
U-238 isn’t weapons-grade anything (except for DU rounds where the density matters). It must be converted to plutonium by neutron bombardment to be bomb material.
If one refines uranium ore the result is mostly U-238.
"Nuclear material"???
Yeah, it's radioactive. Barely. This is otherwise known as "depleted uranium". We make bullets and aircraft balancing weights out of it.
Cost, bulk: $9 per 100gThat makes the cost of bulk U-238 $90/kg. So, $200,000,000 worth is over 2,200 tons worth on the open market.
One kilogram of uranium-235 has the capacity to produce as much energy as 1,500,000 kilograms (1,500 tonnes) of coal.Plutonium is about the same energy density. We need more nuclear power plants, and the US has a strategic need for at least one plutonium-producing breeder reactor. At the moment we have no way of producing plutonium, or nuclear weapon pits (the core component).
Did the article state ‘weapons grade uranium”? Uranium-238 (238U or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature. It is not fissil.....
The world will be on fire soon. Thanks teamobama/soros. :( I see the other day when it was announced we where closing most our military bases by 2019 Iran had a military parade with its new S-300 missiles.