This Is The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of

An article came out today in the Idaho Statesman that enumerates various incidents where the US government has LOST weapons grade nuclear materials. According to the article, "since the cold war ... 6 TONS of bomb materials have gone MUF", meaning "material unaccounted for". The article goes on to say that some of this "may be stuck in pipes at processing facilities, etc." so just because it is unaccounted for does NOT necessarily mean that 6 tons were stolen.

That said, the article starts off mentioning some samples of material that WERE recently stolen from a rented SUV that was being used by "two security experts from the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory." While these samples were NOT sufficient quantity to make a nuclear weapon, it bespeaks of a lack of security in the handling of such materials.

Idaho Statesman Article

But knowing that there are 6 TONS of nuclear material - much of it weapons grade - that are MISSING or unaccounted for, does NOT leave one feeling "warm and fuzzy". This is theoretically enough to "make hundreds of nuclear explosives', according to the article. Also, according to the article, an amount of plutonium the size of a grapefruit is sufficient to produce a bomb.

Think terrorist bomb, 'dirty bomb', possible EMP weapon, etc. SCARY!!!