((French DGSE / DA sources at the UN. circa 1994 data. (Note this part is not for print))

By Gordon Duff and the DGSE (French Intelligence Classified Material Partially Redacted)

(by me)
 
INTRODUCTION
VT is putting “out there” enough “non damaging” nuclear weapons facts to undo the obfuscation that allows nuclear terrorism to be covered up by a complicit press.
We are putting an end to this.  Our confirmations of nuclear weapon use at Gound Zero at the World Trade Center are now covered by endless documents.  We are somewhat fearful of putting things in print that contain formulas that could lead to nuclear proliferation.
We now know that at least two or more of the major explosions at the WTC on 9/11 were nuclear events reported as neutron bombs by an official and never declassified report written for the Department of Energy and Vice President Dick Cheney by teams from Sandia Labs and put into limited circulation to American political leaders in 2003, years before the totally false 9/11 investigation was undertaken, provable as a criminal coverup.
We have solid confirmations of both use of nuclear weapons in state sponsored false flag terrorism, US and “other” military operations and of a real threat of the use of nuclear weapons.  We have both full and partial confirmations of nuclear weapons in the hands of right wing groups being recovered in both the US and United Kingdom.  We have confirmations of the sale of “scrapped” nuclear weapons taken out of service by NATO and returned to the US.
We can confirm not only Israel’s nuclear weapons program but will now systematically dismember their lies about it.  “Welcome to that world.”  If you don’t like what we put out, be thankful for the things we keep back.
Those who leak information aren’t always aware of the difference between “need to know” and becoming part of the problem.  We at VT can get anything, at least now we can.  No one talks to the corporate media and everyone wants to talk while they believe there may be a chance to save something of the world.  I wouldn’t have what I have if people weren’t desperate.
Here we go, roughly translated using my “restaurant French.”
1. The original French design for Dimona was for an 18 Mega Watt low pressure water cooled open top thermal plutonium production reactor with 144 fuel rods. Later increased to 24 MW thermal in the final design. It was originally built with a triple redundant cooling system (3 each, separate electrically powered cooling systems in parallel) Each cooling system was rated at 25 MW thermal for a total emergency cooling capacity of 75 MW thermal. All cooling circuits are externally electrically powered due to the low pressure high volume cooling design. With both an oil fired steam power plant and a diesel powered power plant for back up emergency electrical power. The steam plant also provides all military base electrical power plus extra steam for uranium and plutonium fuel processing. Each fuel rod is rated at 175 KW thermal. With heavy water added for fast breeder operation this was dangerously pushed up to 500KW per fuel rod for a total production rate of 75 MW thermal.
2. A 75 mega watt thermal plant only produces about 25 MW of electrical power. They are only about 30% efficient max. The ratio is 3 to 1.
3. If you run the reactor in fast breeder mode with heavy water, criticality issues become a serious problem. If you do not have excess cooling ability to handle an overload condition or if a circuit fails you can not cool down the reactor fast enough and a steam explosion caused by a flash over event will occur. This is what happened at Dimona during an on line refiling cycle. (This is called fuel rod hot swamping.) The rods half to continuously be moved while under going radiation in order to even out the neutron flux density in the core preventing hot spots from building up. This guarantees that all rods are radiated at the same level in order to maximize plutonium production.
4. Due to advanced neutron absorption in the reactor containment / pressure vessel, accelerated vessel wall corrosion and faulty welds (not 100% weld) in the fuel rod support structures. (They used copper cladded welding rods instead of stainless steel welding rods.) The reactor failed some time after 1988.
This was due to it being run at to high of a power level for too long. The containment / pressure vessel was never designed to be ran at this power level for long periods of time. They pushed the envelop and lost.
5. The containment / pressure vessel failure was a combination of the steel casing becoming to brittle from excess neutron radiation at the 75 MW power level, forming micro cracks in the containment vessel side walls. Advanced corrosion of the containment vessels surface walls and the internal fuel rod support structure welds failing to due heavy neutron bombardment of the copper in the welds. The Russians lost a few subs because of fault welding causing cooling failures in there reactors too.
6.Basically the welds that attached the fuel rod support racks to the side of the pressure vessel failed during a fuel rod removal procedure.
At that power level a flash over event occurred causing a major steam explosion seriously damaging the reactors containment /pressure vessel, support structure and cooling system. The explosion was so sever that it cracked the concrete outer containment dome.
7. The reactor was off line from about 1990 up to at least 1994 according to my data. The Israelis required extensive French assistance in cleaning up the mess. All of the highly radioactive wast was eventually dumped in Mauritian because it was deemed to dangerous to dispose of in Israel. It was so badly damaged that the French recommended that they just fill it full of cement and weld the door shut………
8. This is an exerpt from the French DGSE report on the Dimona steam explosion to the DOE, circa 1994. Note it is Still Classified.(I will redact “actionable material” voluntarily, editor)
CLEARANCE LEVEL “Q” AND ABOVE/EYES ONLY

The Demona steam explosion was caused by a prompt criticality event and the initial mechanism of destruction was a steam-driven water
hammer slamming into the top of the reactor vessel with enough force to blow off the control rod drives, pull out the closure studs, shear the cooling pipes and jack the whole vessel several feet upward.
The large negative moderator coefficient shut the reaction down in microseconds. Bulk fuel failure did not occur.
The fuel was distorted and the control rods were locked in place but the cladding did NOT melt.
9. This ended the Israeli experiment in home grown Plutonium production. After 1994 the reactor if operational at all was severely limited in its power output to levels to low for continued plutonium production.It was now only good for isotope production, lithium 6 and Tritium / Deuterium production.
10. The minimum power level of a plutonium producing reactor that will produce 24 KG of pu-239 in one year, with a pu-240 content level less than 6 % is about 65 MW thermal.
1 mega watt of thermal energy per 24 hr day produces 1 gram of PU-239. 365 days of operation at 100% efficiency will only produce 365 grams of weapons grade pu-239 per mega watt.
11. The minimal amount of PU needed for a 20 KT Hiroshima size bomb is about 24 KG. It takes a 75 MW reactor running at full power for one entire year to produce this amount of fuel.
Dimona as originally designed by the French at 24 MW could only produce about 8 KG of PU-239 per year. With fast breeder operation and heavy water added it was increased by the
Israelis up to 75 MW thermal in size. However this increase in power output rapidly burnt out the reactors containment / pressure vessel leading to its early demise.
12. Estimates of Israeli nuclear weapons production is highly exaggerated for several reasons.
A. Maximum Dimona output is only 24KG of weapons grade pu-239 per year. Up to 1990 that would only be about 30, 20 kt devices at 24 KG each.
b. With a (REDACTED) it will drop to a minimum of 6 KG per device with a 2kt maximum yield. note at 97 % pure pu-239. See charts.
c. For a neutron bomb with no uranium tamper it will take apx (REDACTED) pure PU-239.
d. For a Fission Fusion boosted weapon (hydrogen bomb) another 24kg of pu-239 is required for a total weapons count of (REDACTED) of pu-239 fuel. Producing a 200 KT yield.
(REDACTED PARAGRAPH)
E. After about 16 to 32 years depending upon how it is made the PU-239 fuel has to under go repossessing due to “Poison” build up in the metal.
In the US it is supposed to be retired or re used as MOX fuel only.This is why you half to continually make new fuel. To replace the older aging stockpiles that go bad after time.
So a single 75 MW reactor can only support a 32 year production run or life cycle of PU-239 fuel totaling about 800 KG.
After the fuel is no longer 92% pure it is no longer good as weapons grade material.
But it can be put back into the reactor to off set uranium fuel consumption and to run the reactor in the fast breeder mode.
However Japan taught us what happens when you do that and something big goes wrong. ……..
F. 800KG of PU-239 will only produce about 16, 200 KT Hydrogen bombs or 32, 20 KT Hiroshima size bombs or 66 1 KT neutron bombs or 133 2KT fission bombs with a (REDACTED).
G. If the reactor has continuously ran for 50 years with no shut downs at all and at 100% maximum efficiency. 1964-1994.
It could only have produced a maximum of 1200 KG of PU-239 at 92 to 97% purity. Weapons grade material.
This would be equal to 25, 200 KT hydrogen bombs or 100, 1 KT neutron bombs or 200, 2 KT fission bombs or any mix in between.
H. If the lower number is correct and the reactor shut down by 1990.After 26 years of production.Then by 2022 or earlier, Israel will have ran out of usable weapons grade Pu-239
and it will no longer be a nuclear power unless it can replace its fuel supply from external stockpiles in the US.
France and Great Britten only have about 150 to 300 weapons each and they do not have the spare production capacity to share it with other country’s.
France stopped producing new Plutonium in 1992.
13. Plutonium Pit Swapping.
A. Normally in a US plutonium producing reactor such as at Hanford, it can produce enough weapons grade PU-239 at one time to make up to 3 weapons or about 75 kg of pu-239
every 3 to 4 mounts.
B. All weapons grade PU has a decay rate that differs from all other PU based on when, where and how fast it was made.This also sets its usable life time as weapons grade material.
So only PU that was made at the same time in the same reactor can be matched. If you try matching old PU from different reactors with highly different fissile rate it will
spontaneously blow its self apart with several tons of force. Not a good idea. A Dimona size reactor cannot do this, it is too small in size. Once in once out production only.
C. There for all PU made at Dimona or in any other very small clandestine PU production reactors such as in Iraqi, Iran, Pakistan, India etc is not matchable with any other PU.
As PU decays over time due to what is called Poisson build up in the metal it becomes no good for weapons use.
This ranges from about 16 to 32 years for weapons grade PU and about 12 years for Deuterium. Uranium dose not have this problem.
D. If Dimona is permanently off line then Iran and Pakistan will out produce Dimona in PU production in Just a few years of operation.
This is the Israeli “missile gap” fear and why they are in a panic to take out the Iranian nuclear production capability..
E. The Iranian reactor at Bushehr is basically a 1,000 MW thermal BWR if converted to military use it could produce up to 15, 20KT fission weapons per year at 24 KG PU each
or up to 365 KG of PU per year max. It is 13 times larger than Dimona. IE the Missile gap and the Israeli panic attack.
Pakistan has a total civilian nuclear production capacity of 725 MW or about 10 times that of Israel. If there reactors were converted into PU production reactors
they could make up to 10, 20 KT fission weapons per year or about 250 KG of weapons grade PU-239.
F. The total Islamic nuclear program in theory can produce up to 600 KG of weapons grade PU-239 per year if converted to military use. However Israel and Dimona can only produce
up to 25 KG of weapons grade PU per Year if it is still in operational condition and if not; Israeli will start running out of weapons grade PU by 2020………
The mass-dependent efficiency equation shows that it is desirable to assembly as many critical masses as possible. Applying this equation to Little Boy (and ignoring the equation’s limitations in the very low yield range) we can examine the effect of varying the amount of fissile material present:
mass vs blast size in tons.
1.05 80 kg
1.1 1.2 tons
1.2 17 tons
1.3 78 tons
1.4 220 tons
1.5 490 tons
1.6 930 tons
1.8 2.5 kt
2.0 5.2 kt
2.25 10.5 kt
2.40 15.0 kt LITTLE BOY
2.5 18.6 kt
2.75 29.6 kt
3.0 44 kt
3.1
If its fissile content had been increased by a mere 25%, its yield would have tripled.
The explosive efficiency of Little Boy was 0.23 kt/kg of fissile material (1.3%), compared to 2.8 kt/kg (16%) for Fat Man (both are adjusted to account for the yield contribution from tamper fast fission). Use of 93.5% U-235 would have at least doubled Little Boy yield and efficiency, but it would still have remained disappointing compared to the yields achievable using implosion and the same quantity of fissile material.

More notes:

	The effects of neutron irradiation on the physical properties of the
	vessel materials is of primary concern in reactor vessel operation.
	The reactor vessel is provided with specimen capsules, located
	between the thermal shield (heavy metal designed to absorb
	much of the gamma radiation and prevent gamma heating of ex-vessel
	components) and vessel wall opposite the center of the core.
	The capsules contain tensile Charpy V-notch and wedge-opening-loading
	specimens taken from hte reactor vessel shell plates and associated
	weld materials and heat-affected zone.  Dosimeters and thermal
	monitors are included to permit evaluation of the neutron flux
	and temperatures experienced by the specimens.  By comparing
	test data from the specimens removed periodically during refueling
	shutdowns with the unirradiated specimen data provided, the
	effects of neutron irradiation on the material properties can
	be determined.

This describes the system installed in all Westinghouse PWRs. Other
reactor brands use similar systems. Note that these capsules are
located next to the core where they receive significantly more irradiation
than the reactor pot. It is from these very specimens that it was
extrapolated that neutron embrittlement MIGHT be a problem toward the
design life of the pot. Several steps have been taken to mitigate the
problem. But first a little review of what the problem really is.
Steel exhibits a property called the Nil Ductility Transition (NDI). Below
the transition temperature, steel loses its ductility and becomes brittle.
The temperature varies with allow but is usually fairly low, below
the freezing point of water. Long term neutron irradiation causes
crystal lattice defects in the steel which raises the NDT temperature.
The concern is that if the NDT temperature rises above that of cooling
water, in the event of an accident, cold cooling water could shock
the reactor while it was below NDT and thus cause it to fracture.
Under no scenario of irradiation is the NDT predicted rise above
approximately ambient temperature.
Several simple steps have been taken to address the problem. Because
the rise in NDT is directly related to the total integrated fast neutron
flux dose, the first simple step was reduce the enrichment of the fuel
in peripheral fuel channels. This reduces the generation of fast
neutrons AND provides shielding from fast neutrons in the interior
of the core. Next, for reactors whose capsules show the possibility
of problems, they have been derated, typically to 95% full power.
Again this markedly reduces the fast flux impinging on the pot.
Lastly and most expensively, the sources of emergency cooling water
now have heaters installed so that the cooling water is hotter than
any possible NDT temperature.
The other important fact is that neutron embrittlement is completely
reversed by annealing. The high temperature allows displaced
atoms in the crystal lattice to snap back into place. If embrittlement
becomes a problem, the reactor can be annealed in place. The process
will involve adapting the same equipment used to anneal the reactor
after fabrication to a radiation environment. Not particularly
pleasant for the workers but certainly doable. Massive literature
on the subject is available. Reports of work at the FFTF on the
subject are of great interest. Much work has been done on neutron
embrittlement in relation to hot fusion research because most of the
energy from a hot fusion reaction is postulated to come from fast
neutrons that will heavily irradiate the reactor components.
Bonus section:

A Primer on the Detection of Nuclear and Radiological Weapons

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

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