Course RSS FeedsPHYS49000 (PHYS490) Spring 2009
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Great Issues Course: Special Nuclear Materials Their Science and Impact on Society
Current session: NOT IN SESSION
Offering: Spring 2009; 3 credits
Prerequisites: None
Description:
- Course overview (pdf)
- Reading Materials (pdf)
Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) are those nuclear isotopes that can be used to make nuclear weapons. These same materials, uranium and plutonium (defined as Special Nuclear Materials by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954) can be used to produce low cost electric power much needed to reduce the carbon footprint and replace coal and oil based transportation and power production. For these materials to be economically useful on a world scale requires their production, transportation and use in quantities of 100’s of millions of kilograms. However, these same materials could also be used to make nuclear weapons. The present world's supply of highly enriched uranium is estimated to be 1,600,000 kilograms; the supply of plutonium, 450,000 kilograms. Yet, in theory, as little as 4 kilograms (9 pounds) of plutonium would be needed to make a nuclear bomb and as little as 16 to 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium would be needed to make an efficient bomb; a crude bomb could be made with 50 to 100 kilograms of uranium. As technology advances, the ability for a small group of clandestine scientists to produce such a weapon becomes more and more real. One of the most devastating attacks a terrorist group could mount from both a humanitarian and economic view would be to detonate an atomic bomb in a city. If exploded in Manhattan during working hours, for example, a bomb with a yield of only 1 kiloton could kill 200,000 people outright and flatten eleven city blocks.
This course will focus on the implications of living in the “plutonium” society. There are three areas the course will explore. The first is from the scientific and technical side; the physics and technologies that can be used to search for and track special nuclear materials. Can a technology wall be built to protect a society from a determined attack? How intrusive will the technologies be to those it is trying to protect? What are the economic impacts of such technologies and are they worth the costs? The course will consider the social and economic costs of such systems and whether or not they can be effective in free and open societies. The second area of exploration is from the science ethics view. Many argue that science should only be conducted in the open and all work should be published and disseminated as widely as possible. If so, knowledge of building nuclear bomb will become wide spread. Will devastating events become more likely? If done in secret will those in control of advanced capabilities take advantage for their own purposes? And finally the third area, will discuss the use of nuclear materials from the point of the struggle for a world culture caused by uninvited culture interactions due to rapid and uncontrollable developments in technology. Does this struggle for modernity in any way justify extreme acts? Can such acts alter the flow of modernity?
In summary the course will explore the “plutonium” society, what it is, what it takes to maintain it and whether or not such a society is a world we will want to be part of and live in.
No textbooks found
