[John H K]

Uranium is far more abundant than plutonium and methods to separate, purify and mold weapons-grade uranium are not particularly technically advanced or expensive. Plutonium manufacture and purification, in contrast, is one of the most advanced weapon-fabrication processes.

OK, since we actually do have people who know what they're talking about on this thread...

Hasn't SUCKFOR gotten this 100% reversed? It's easier to build the BOMB once you have the material from uranium rather than plutonium (you can build a simple "gun" for the uranium, but need a complicated implosion sphere for the plutonium) but it's actually less expensive and easier to create weapons grade plutonium with a reactor than go throug the lengthy and complicated process to chemically enrich Uranium?

My impression was that the facilities at Oak Ridge for Uranium were far more expensive and vast than the reactors at Hanford for Plutonium in the Manhattan Project.

Please correct if I'm mistaken.

[terilyn]

Actually, they reported just a little while ago on Fox that the Marines initially got the positive readings, and called in the Marine chem/bio team to verify. They got the same positive results.

So now they are simply guarding the facility until some independent testing can be completed.