WI: Iraqi Scuds strike Israeli nuclear plant during the First Gulf War

Delta Force

Banned
They are today, but Dimona was built way way back, and I dunno what safety measures it has. I agree with Delta Force that there's unlikely to be a major radiological incident as a result of this, and even if there is it's in the middle of nowhere, but we just don't know enough about Dimona to say how hard it is.

Below 50 MWe a nuclear reactor doesn't even need to pay for Price-Anderson Act insurance in the United States. All the safety equipment on plants larger than 50 MWe, which is around 150 MWt to 200 MWt, was intended to provide through active measures the same degree of safety the smaller reactors had passively.
 

Delta Force

Banned
I thought the reactor was Israeli built with French assistance?

My understanding is that the French agreed to provide Israel with a nuclear reactor and other equipment to get Israel to participate in the 1956 Suez Crisis. I'm not sure if it was a free reactor though, as Israel solicited donations for the program as well.

It wasn't as dumb as you make it sound. Part of this is to ensure that the US knows whats going on with other nation's nuclear energy programs, since we're supplying them. And the research reactors were mostly too small to be suitable for significant production of plutonium - most of them were TRIGAs, typically under 1 MWth power. Dimona is believed to be 150 MWth. Plutonium production capacity is roughly proportional to thermal power, so...

The use of HEU was a mistake. But it should be noted that, at least in principle, this was supposed to be kept under careful inventory control, and the fuel returned to the US for reprocessing after use, so we could ensure no one was building up a substantial inventory of weaponisable material. The controls seem to have fallen prey to bureaucratic disinterest, unfortunately.

Providing heavy water reactors would have made it impossible to divert research reactor materials without using reprocessing, although that additional step wasn't an impediment for India.
 
Providing heavy water reactors would have made it impossible to divert research reactor materials without using reprocessing, although that additional step wasn't an impediment for India.

I suspect part of why they used HEU was that it means your reactor core can be a lot smaller for a given power level - meaning it would be cheaper - and it can have a much higher neutron flux - desirable in a research reactor. A bad idea in retrospect, but understandable.
 
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