A shipment of bomb grade uranium arrived at a safe ability in Russia Monday, sent from a research reactor in Poland as part of a contest to secure dangerous radioactive material around the world. There was no way to mistake the shipment for something innocuous like Polish sausage the trucks were escorted by greatly armed police officers and plastered with large radioactive signs. "I feel like we are prepared for everything, but you are just a small bit nervous," said Igor Bolshinsky who is part of small American team that planned the nuclear road trip. His group was answerable for the transport of the uranium from Poland back to Russia, where it came from in the first place.
The route is complicated: The fabric will travel by truck to Warsaw, by train to the Baltic port of Gdynia, by boat to the Russian port of Murmansk, and lastly by train to high security ability in Siberia. This uranium was never future for weapons it was fuel for a small nuclear reactor that scientists use for research. Globally there are over one hundred research reactors resembling the one in Poland. "Most of them were supplied either by the United States or the Soviet Union through the Cold War.
They do all kinds of special work, ranging from training students to even interesting archeology and medical research," says Matthew Bunn, and specialist on nuclear security at Harvard.These reactors are using highly enrich uranium fuel pure enough for a bomb. Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has grown increasingly concerned that terrorists could steal this material or buy it. And Bunn speak these reactors are not very well guarded. "They are just not places where it's plausible that you are forever going to have the kinds of military level security that is actually, in my view, appropriate," he says.
The route is complicated: The fabric will travel by truck to Warsaw, by train to the Baltic port of Gdynia, by boat to the Russian port of Murmansk, and lastly by train to high security ability in Siberia. This uranium was never future for weapons it was fuel for a small nuclear reactor that scientists use for research. Globally there are over one hundred research reactors resembling the one in Poland. "Most of them were supplied either by the United States or the Soviet Union through the Cold War.
They do all kinds of special work, ranging from training students to even interesting archeology and medical research," says Matthew Bunn, and specialist on nuclear security at Harvard.These reactors are using highly enrich uranium fuel pure enough for a bomb. Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has grown increasingly concerned that terrorists could steal this material or buy it. And Bunn speak these reactors are not very well guarded. "They are just not places where it's plausible that you are forever going to have the kinds of military level security that is actually, in my view, appropriate," he says.
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