The End of the Second World War - Part 1 of 6

#26
#26
OneManGang said:
ornl-k25-sitemap.gif
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Thanks!
 
#29
#29
In this day in age knowledge is widespread. It's facilities, resources, money, and time that many nations/groups lack. Of course having satellites peering down on you all the time and the ability to detect radiation much better than 30 years ago tend to make it harder to develop under the cover of darkness.
 
#31
#31
OrangeEmpire said:
Last night the History channel had a special with regards to this discussion.
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I saw a special on the early Oak Ridge story about a year ago. Is this the same one, or a new one? That was a good watch - particularly because I knew a lot of the people in it (Ray Smith, Bill Willcox, David Bradshaw, etc.). The funniest part was when they described Bradshaw as a historian who took them around to show some things about Oak Ridge. He may be a historian - but he is the MAYOR of Oak Ridge. I'm sure that the Chamber of Commerce was very happy to have the mayor plugging the city throughout the show! :)
 
#32
#32
It sounds like the material was not taken from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but instead East Tennessee Technology Park. If I am not mistaken, that is the new name for K-25. There is no work currently going on there for uranium enrichment. It is possible that this information pertained to the gaseous diffusion processes that were once employed there - but that is old news. I'm not sure if they would have information on centrifugal enrichment, but that might be of interest to some countries - although like I said, they probably already have it.

Government accuses contractor of taking classified nuke materials - CNN.com
 
#33
#33
The News-Sentinel has a pretty good article up about this. It actually seems that he was trying to sell pieces of broken pipe from the K-25 gaseous diffusion enrichment process....to the FRENCH. I hate to break it to him, but the French would have no interest in gaseous diffusion enrichment, particularly because they employ a better, more efficient centrifugal enrichment.

This must not be the whole story though, because broken pipes would hardly go down as a serious breach of secrecy...unless their point is that if he got this out, others could have gotten other things out.

Worker pleads not guilty of scheme to sell nuke secrets to France : Local News : Knoxville News Sentinel
 
#34
#34
I think technically anything inside the old K-25 plant is still considered "classified" until declared to be otherwise by the DOE.

The real backstory may be that he was trying to sell the pipes for the nickle plating. Nickle is the only metal that can resist uranium hexaflouride gas, so every pipe in the K-25 facility is/was nickle plated. K-25, at one point during the war, was absorbing the entire domestic production of nickle.

That nickle plating was one of the reasons BNFL bid on the job. They were figuring on recovering the nickle and selling it. I recall there was a contractural dustup over that issue some years ago, but not the details or the final result.
 
#35
#35
OneManGang said:
I think technically anything inside the old K-25 plant is still considered "classified" until declared to be otherwise by the DOE.

The real backstory may be that he was trying to sell the pipes for the nickle plating. Nickle is the only metal that can resist uranium hexaflouride gas, so every pipe in the K-25 facility is/was nickle plated. K-25, at one point during the war, was absorbing the entire domestic production of nickle.

That nickle plating was one of the reasons BNFL bid on the job. They were figuring on recovering the nickle and selling it. I recall there was a contractural dustup over that issue some years ago, but not the details or the final result.
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I think that modern nickel alloys like Hastelloy are also resitant to UF6, no?

and my point is that it would be an overstatement by the FBI/government to consider this a serious breech of the nation's secrecy unless A) there was information also taken or B) they just mean that the fact that it could happen means something more serious could happen.

I would like to know if the French contacted our government or if our fantastic, nifty machines at NSA listened in on their STU3-phone's conversation or encrypted emails with the home country about it.
 
#36
#36
...also, that is an interesting point you made about BNFL's contract for the cleanup and recovery of the nickel. Did the government not retain the rights to the metal in their contract...or factor it into the price of their cleanup contract (as a form of secondary payment)? tisk tisk... :)
 
#37
#37
Based on my (faulty) recollection, the nickle was included in the BNFL contract to demolish the building(i.e., BNFL could salvage whatever it could sell and then do so) but then there was a change in DOE regs which declared the nickle too contaminated to be put on the market. This would (naturally) affect BNFL's bottom line since they were using the expected income to offset their winning low bid.

I'm sure there was more to it than that, and I may be way off base.

Undoubtably, the gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah and Ohio were built using newer alloys to line the pipes and filters.
 
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