Nuclear Discussion - Nukkad Thread: 25 Apr 2008

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bala
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Nuclear Discussion - Nukkad Thread: 25 Apr 2008

Post by bala »

Old thread HERE
-Arun_S

------------------------------------------------------
Another rehash on Hyde Act, this time from Boucher...

N-deal not bound by Hyde Act, says Boucher
The US has reiterated that the civilian nuclear initiative with India is bound by the 123 agreement and not the Hyde Act.

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Richard Boucher rejected the notion that he has somehow dodged the issue in the past.

"No, I didn't," Boucher said in response to a query.

"We don't see any inconsistency between the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement. The requirements of US law are on us to meet. The essential function of the Act is to enable a nuclear deal with India, because otherwise under American law we were prohibited from doing anything with India," the senior State Department official said.

"And so the Hyde Act is what makes it possible for us to sign this deal and conclude the agreement. The agreement binds the US and India once it's fully ratified and finished," he added.

"We don't see any inconsistency between what we were allowed to do and required to do under the Hyde Act, but what binds India and the United States together is the 123 agreement, not the act," Boucher maintained.

The senior official also stressed that the civilian nuclear deal with India is not a political issue so far as the Republicans and the Democrats are concerned, but what has to be borne in mind is the political calendar in the US in the context of the elections and that the Bush administration is indeed worried about this.
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Post by Gerard »

'Indo-US civil N-deal bound by 123 agreement, not Hyde Act'
The US has reiterated that the civilian nuclear initiative with India is bound by the 123 agreement and not the Hyde Act.

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Richard Boucher rejected the notion that he has somehow dodged the issue in the past.

"No, I didn't," Boucher said in response to a query. "We don't see any inconsistency between the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement.
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Post by SaiK »

Yes.. N deal is not bound by hyde.. But, America is bound by Hyde. Hence, the after signing N deal, and then CREing & GUBOing are all part of Hyding, the Mr. Jackyle N. Deal.

BTW, India is not asking Mr. Dealer to unhyde their face. We are simply asking our GoI, to ensure appropriate Hydes are put in force within the Indian Constitution and its framework, so that we are covered from reciprocative actions after signing the deal.

"Create Law as you Go!".. is the best option.
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Post by Gerard »

Gerard
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Post by Gerard »

ramana
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Post by ramana »

Did he check with Rice who said things to the contrary?
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Post by Gerard »

One does not have to be a nuclear scientist to figure out the need for what disrupts uniform compression of implosion weapon. Symmetry and uniformity of course.
Wasn't this copper ring used just for keeping the core cool during the actual assembly process?

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaSmiling.html
So eight months after it began operation, Ramanna ordered Purnima shut down in January 1973 so that part of its fuel could be used to manufacture the nuclear device. This type of solid core device requires about 6 kg of plutonium (the Gadget and the Fat Man bomb each used 6.2 kg; but the design yield of the Indian device was smaller), and Purnima contained 18 kg. Thus in 1974 India's entire inventory of plutonium could have manufactured no more than three bombs.
nstead of fabricating the core as two hemispheres as was done during the Manhattan Project, Soni and Kakodkar designed the core to be made in a number of slices (probably six) that stacked to form a sphere. To ensure a snug fit, the mating surfaces of the slices tapered off with a twist so that they would lock together securely. This design, which they first modeled this in brass, allowed them to work with smaller pieces of plutonium. The actual plutonium core was fabricated by a team led by P.R. Roy of BARC's radio-metallurgy department, who had also made the plutonium fuel rods for Purnima.
The completed core (probably packed as separate pieces) was transported to Pokhran from Trombay under the direct supervision of Chidambaram and Roy. They rode in an army convoy carrying the plutonium core packed in a special case for the 900 km journey, which took three days.

The explosive lenses and other components of the implosion system came from TBRL by truck along with high speed cameras to record the detonation.

The device was assembled in a hut 40 m from the shaft. Assembly began on 13 May with a team made up of Soni, Kakodkar, Iyengar, Venkatesan and Balakrishnan. During the assembly process the plutonium core was mounted in a copper disk to act as a heat sink and remove the decay heat. Nonetheless due to the extreme desert heat the core components did not fit together properly, and the assembly attempt was unsuccessful. The next day attempts were started earlier in the day and succeeded, so assembly moved on the lenses. Each of 12 lenses weighed approximately 100 kg and required 4 people to lift. Once both halves of the device were complete, each with 6 lenses, the upper half was raised with a crane to put in place. While this was going on one of the lenses slipped out of its mount and fell to the ground, becoming chipped. There was one (and only one) spare lens on hand to serve as a replacement. The assembly operation was complete after nightfall. The assembled device was hexagonal, yellow, about 1.25 m in diameter and weighed 1400 kg. The device was mounted on a hexagonal metal tripod, and transported to the shaft on rails which the army kept covered with sand.
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Post by Katare »

ramana wrote:Did he check with Rice who said things to the contrary?
It’s all jugglery of words from US

India is not bound by hyde act
US President is bound by Hyde act
There are no contradictions between Hyde act and 123 agreement

Third sentence is the bone of contention since there are certainly subtle and substantial differences between two documents 9both content and spirit).

123 reads like a positive document between two countries willing and eager to strengthen relationship while Hyde act reads like its rule book trying to create fences, penalties, putting boundaries, expectations and demands.
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Post by ramana »

Gerard wrote:LEADER ARTICLE: Stop Iran Going Nuclear
By K Subrahmanyam
This article title is not correct and gives wrong impression. What KS is arguing is that the West must do more to curb proliferation from their own entities in addition to devaluing the currency of power by taking whatever measures that they need to.

So why was it mis-labeled? Or is it to pass under the radar?
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Post by Gerard »

link
"An arms crawl began to look at an arms race. There was a negative impact on the global non proliferation regime that moved away from optimism to pessimism," Einhorn told a seminar organised by the Asia programme of the Centre along with its international security studies programme.
The May 1998 tests ushered in a lengthy period of proliferation pessimism. The tests showed that universality of the Non Proliferation Treaty was dead,"
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Post by ramana »

Einhorn and other NPAs were wrong in looking at India as the problem child of non-proliferation. The fact that the bomb didnt spread after the tests shows how incorrect the whole NPT structure based on cornering India is. But you wont hear them admitting it. In fact it was the non spread after the tests that induced the US to come up with some sort of an arrangement and modify the NNPA of 1978 with the India specific Hyde(bound) Act.
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Post by svinayak »

ramana wrote:Einhorn and other NPAs were wrong in looking at India as the problem child of non-proliferation. The fact that the bomb didnt spread after the tests shows how incorrect the whole NPT structure based on cornering India is. But you wont hear them admitting it. In fact it was the non spread after the tests that induced the US to come up with some sort of an arrangement and modify the NNPA of 1978 with the India specific Hyde(bound) Act.
They wanted to induce a nuclear arms race which they could control and in the process control the nations.
Cornering India was part of a larger plan of controling the sequence of events in the world.

This tells a lot what they were expecting
The Director of the Asia Programme at the Wilson Centre Bob Hathaway suggested that the 1998 tests appeared to be a major threat to regional security and world peace at that time, but 10 years down the line, their implications did not appear to be earth-shaking.
Last edited by svinayak on 25 Apr 2008 05:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Arun_S »

It is becoming increasingly clear that a number of warped disinformation campaigns are apparently being carried out by deluded elements with nihilistic vested interests, that needs to be highlighted and legitimately discredited. This is apparently part of an attempt on the part of some people to spread disinformation.

For example, at the blog for wayward vagarands: Maverick's World (9- April)

Categorical stmt :
........This is a proliferation far in excess of Iran's 1-2 bombs and Saudi Arabia's 10 bombs and the NPA have no say in this.
While one cannot hold up a regressive and repressive regime like that which exists in Saudi Arabia as a shining beacon of freedom and democracy, the credibility of the writer of such articles needs to be brought into question. There is no credible proof for Saudi Arabia being in the possession of 10 NW's! Saudi Arabia possession and attempts to acquire long range missiles from China and Pakistan are known. Also known is the Saudi-Pakistan nexus to attempt to transfer NW technology from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. But where is the evidence for the categorically stated 10 NW's in Saudi possession?

1.) In the comments section the article's author categorically states:
...This is not what the DAE said in its public utterances. The DAE said that a Fusion Boosted Fission device had been tested in 1998. The DAE stated in public that the device had a yeild of 40-50 kT and that the yeild was scalable to 150kT. At no point did the DAE claim that it had a full thermonuclear burn and whenever asked the DAE clarified that testing such a device was impossible given the limits at the test site.

In the above statement, the writer is in effect explicitly calling RC a liar, while purporting to support the claims of RC and the Indian SciCom.

Perhaps, this claim was the source of the comment made by ldev on BRF (13-April), that he later graciously withdrew, on being provided with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

and

2.) Today, a similar piece of science fiction has been written by the disreputable author of these bogus articles and op-eds in the comments section of Maverick's World :
...............Colloquially the word "thermonuclear" refers to the "Hydrogen Bomb" - a device that achieves yeilds in the MT range.

Technically, any device in which a primary/first stage charge that creates the temperatures needed to drive a fusion reaction is a "thermonuclear" device.

What was tested in 1998 was primarily a Fusion Boosted Fission device which usually serves as a primary to a much larger bomb. There was no attempt to really demonstrate anything beyond the ability to achieve a *small* controlled fusion burn. As indicated in several public statements by the DAE, the desire to test higher yeilds was limited by the constraints on the site itself.

The DAE makes absolutely no claims to having tested a bomb that had yeilds in the 100kT range. The DAE was not trying to test a "thermonuclear" (as used in the colloquial sense) bomb in 1998. There is no public record of any statement by any Indian government official that suggests that India wants to develop "thermonuclear" (as in the colloquial sense) bombs..........

These repeated false statements purported to spread disinformation, fly in the face of official GoI statements:

1) TN device claim

2) and RC's claim made at IISc, quoted below: http://www.fas.org/news/india/1998/05/9 ... .htm[quote]
Q: How near is the thermonuclear device to a hydrogen bomb? What was the material used for the fission trigger?

A: (RC) - The hydrogen bomb is the popular term. In a hydrogen bomb there is a fission trigger and separately there is also thermonuclear material which requires appropriate configuring. It is therefore a two-stage device. The secondary stage provides the major yield. The range can go quite high but we were limited in the total yield by the damage it may cause to habitations nearby. We are not revealing the materials used.

Q: Do you have a strategic command system?

A: (K) - Please explain the meaning of command. We have here a partnership. The culmination of that partnership is in weaponisation. As for command and control systems, we have different forms presently, and are moving towards that.

Q: Is India holding nuclear weapons?

A: (K) - PM has said India is a NWS. Please refer to Article 9 of NPT.

Q: We hear that Shakti 1 is not a thermonuclear device but a boosted fission device?

A: (RC) - As I said earlier, a thermonuclear device has two stages a fission trigger and a secondary stage. This was a thermonuclear device as it had two stages.[/quote]
Such schizophrenic/psychotic articles and op-eds, written by disreputable persons ostensibly with leanings to vested interests whose goals are orthogonal to those of India & the civilized world, need to be noted and highlighted.

Reminds me of 2 epics
1. Indian Gatha of "Nahush Kaa Patan" {"The Fall of Nahush". Nahush defeats Indra the God of Heaven, but he covets & desires to possess Indarni (Indra's wife), eventually leads to a curse and he fall to earth as a serpent}

2. and the legend of : "The Fallen Angel" in the Bible

History repeats I am told.
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Post by ldev »

As conjecture, rumor, hypothesis and innuendo is being freely posted, I thought of adding my two paisa bit to it. 8)

So I am posting an article originally published on November 26 1998 (which may have been posted before) because of the credence given to overseas sources in the recent past on this thread as well as to highlight that at least according to certain sources such as the author of this article, DAE wanted to test again and this was apparent in late 1998 itself, because it apprehended that Shakti 1 was not totally successful, but was blocked from doing so by GOI which was at that time led by the NDA and ABV.

So I think that the decision for not testing does not rest with DAE as written on this thread but with the Government in 1998-1999 as given in this article.

http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/nucwatch/n ... 12698.html
India May Test Again Because H-Bomb Failed, U.S. Believes
By Mark Hibbs, Nucleonics Week, November 26, 1998 (reprinted with permission)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


One of India's May nuclear blasts, which was described by the New Delhi government as a successful thermonuclear weapons test, was in fact a failure, senior U.S. nuclear intelligence analysts have concluded after months of study.

Discrepancies between claims made by India after the tests and actual seismic data recorded by several international organizations have prompted speculation that at least one of three tests at the Pokaran test site India said were successful on May 11 did not go off. Last week, however, Washington officials told Nucleonics Week that analysts at the Z Division of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, responsible for making estimates of progress in foreign nuclear weapons programs based on classified data, have now concluded that the second stage of a two-stage Indian hydrogen bomb device failed to ignite as planned.

As a result of the apparent failure, U.S. official sources said, the Indian government is under pressure by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), responsible for India's nuclear weapons design and production effort, to test the H-bomb again, in the face of ongoing bilateral talks in which the U.S. seeks to persuade India to agree to a global nuclear test ban.
{So the real reason the Vajpayee government did not test inspite of DAE pressure to test was because of the Jasoo-Talbott chai-biskoot sessions}

Measured in terms of verified capabilities, apparent progress in delivery systems, and military control of the bomb program, one U.S. official said, ''Pakistan may have pulled even or gone ahead'' of India in the South Asian nuclear arms race, by virtue of tit-for-tat tests Islamabad carried out two weeks after India's detonations.

Only days after the blast, DAE announced to the world that the test was a complete success, and that India now had demonstrated a thermonuclear weapons capability.

When India announced it had tested an H-bomb, U.S. officials and some ex-DAE officials suggested that, because Indian officials in the past had used the term ''thermonuclear'' loosely, the biggest Indian shot on May 11 was a boosted fission weapon, not a true hydrogen bomb (NW, 14 May, 12). After several months of analysis of seismic, human, and signals intelligence data, however, U.S. officials directly responsible for interpreting the information have concluded that they are satisfied that DAE tried to test an H-bomb.

A boosted fission weapon is a nuclear weapon in which neutrons produced by thermonuclear reactions serve to enhance the fission process, which itself is set off in the type of weapons designed by India by the implosion of a core of metallic plutonium. In a boosted fission bomb, the contribution of the thermonuclear reaction to the total yield is relatively small.

A full-fledged thermonuclear weapon is a two-stage weapon in which the main contribution to the explosive energy results from the fusion of light nuclei, such as deuterium and tritium. The high temperatures required for the fusion reaction, produced in the secondary stage of the device, are initially produced by means of an initial fission explosion, generated by the primary stage.

According to well-placed sources, U.S. analysts now strongly believe that, on May 11, the primary stage of an Indian H-bomb detonated, but its heat failed to ignite the secondary stage. ''If India really wants a thermonuclear capability, they will have to test again and hope they get it right,'' one U.S. official said.

After the May blasts, India declared that a ''thermonuclear device'' code-named Shakti-1 had produced a nuclear yield of 43 kilotons. At the same time, India asserted that a ''fission device'' was exploded yielding 12 kilotons, and that a ''low-yield device'' had produced a yield of about 0.2 kilotons. But seismic and intelligence data analysed by U.S. experts have prompted the conclusion that ''the secondary didn't work,'' one source explained. According to data compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the expected mid-point of a range of probable yields for all blasts on May 11, given the seismic recordings of between 4.7 and 5.0 on the Richter scale, would be only about 12 kilotons.

Sources said that, while the U.S. has not made any public comment about what it knows about the Indian H-bomb test, the Clinton administration has raised the subject with the Indian government in secretive, high-level talks with New Delhi over terms under which India would agree to comply with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The Indian side has asserted that the discrepancy between measured yield and the DAE claim of 43 kilotons is accounted for by a precautionary reduction by DAE of the amount of fuel used in the secondary, in order to prevent damaging the village of Khetolai, located only a few miles from the test site. U.S. analysts have concluded that was not the case. ''The Indians are hopping mad that we don't believe their H-bomb worked,'' one source said.

But the matter has now severely complicated the U.S.-Indian talks on the test ban, diplomatic sources observed last week. Because the H-bomb test failed, DAE ''is under intense pressure to test again,'' one U.S. official said. According to an official at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, ''The U.S. has been preparing to let India climb down'' from heavy sanctions which were applied nearly immediately after the May test series, provided India agrees to the CTBT. But if DAE didn't deliver on the H-bomb test, he said, the U.S. ''will have to give India a lot more in return'' for a firm agreement to agree to the CTBT. Diplomatic sources said that, in 1997, India had asked the U.S. for test simulation data, such as that the U.S. agreed to supply France a few years ago, in order to permit India to accept the CTBT, but that the U.S. had refused. One analyst said that ''it would now be logical'' for India to renew that request. But sources said a U.S. transfer of such data to I

In the heady hours following what appeared to be a series of successful nuclear weapons tests in May, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had declared that India would not carry out further tests and would negotiate accession to the CTBT (NW, 14 May, Extra). But since then, U.S. officials said, DAE has bid to test the H-bomb again.{So DAE had bid to test again but was refused by the NDA} At the same time, one Indian analyst said last week, Vajpayee is ''terribly worried'' about the prospect that the Indian military might get control of the nuclear weapon program. ''The military is looking at what was apparently a DAE failure and it sees what's happening over in Pakistan where the military is directly in control of its weapons program,'' one U.S. official said. -- Mark Hibbs, Washington



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mark Hibbs is European Editor of Nucleonics Week and Nuclear Fuel, leading specialist newsletters on international nuclear affairs, published by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Hibbs, based in Bonn, Germany, covers nuclear energy and proliferation problems in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Asia.

Mark Hibbs' coordinates:
Tel: x49-228-215051
Fax: x49-228-218849
E-mail: mhibb@mh.com
Added later:

Based on the article above, calling RC, AK et al as traitors etc on this thread is misplaced and wrong. It is clear that they wanted to test again very soon but were overridden by their political masters.
Last edited by ldev on 25 Apr 2008 06:11, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by ramdas »

Arunji,

Had read a little about Rayleigh-Taylor /Richmeyer-Mechkov instabilities. Briefly speaking, the RM type of instability is a limiting case of RT when an acceleration given by some sort of delta function occurs in a direction opposite that of the density gradient at the interface between a denser and lighter fluid. This is can ruin a secondary even if radiation implosion occurs and can occur even due to a slight fabrication defect - the chances of such a thing happening are very great if any ad-hoc changes analogous to what happened in POK-I are done.

Given what happened in S-1 , it is likely it would have functioned better had they attempted a radiation imploded boosted fission device as the secondary rather than a secondary with a sizeable amount of light fusion fuel. Such an entity would probably be less vulnerable to RT/RM instability and relatively minor assymetries. After all, radiation implosion does seem to have occurred, and would have compressed an almost purely fissile secondary more efficiently than any chemical explosion (not to speak of weight savings), even if the amount of compression was insufficient for efficient LiD fusion. With 8kg Pu, a yield close to 150kt would have been achieved even by such a more conservative device.

If RT/RM instability is the main issue, a device with a radiation imploded boosted fission secondary might be more reliable (than even a sloika) . A working primary should lead to a good radiation ablation. So, RT/RM is more likely to be the cause of S-1 not performing as expected.
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Post by John Snow »

ldev Ji>> said
As conjecture, rumor, hypothesis and innuendo is being freely posted, I thought of adding my two paisa bit to it.

...............................................................................................
......................................................................................

Based on the article above, calling RC, AK et al as traitors etc on this thread is misplaced and wrong. It is clear that they wanted to test again very soon but were overridden by their political masters.
This is a gentle floater (spin).

Why?


Q: We hear that Shakti 1 is not a thermonuclear device but a boosted fission device?

A: (RC) - As I said earlier, a thermonuclear device has two stages a fission trigger and a secondary stage. This was a thermonuclear device as it had two stages.



A: (K) - The hydrogen bomb criteria was determined based on the location of this village.

Q: So you can carry out tests with greater capacity?

A: (RC) - Yes.

Q: Where is India in nuclear weapons technology today?

A: (K) - The 3 tests on May 11, the hydrogen bomb, the fission device and sub-kiloton device, as well as the two subsequent sub-kiloton device have proved clearly that our nuclear weapons technology has achieved a stage of self reliance. If there is a demand for it, we shall do it.

Q: What was the logic behind simultaneous detonation?

A: (RC) - The two devices, the thermonuclear and fission device were one km apart. We needed to make sure that the detonation of one did not cause damage to the other, since the stock wave has a time travel in milliseconds. So went in for simultaneous detonation. It was also simpler - use one button to blow three. We had close in seismic measurements and accelerometer data also.

Q: What fraction of the hydrogen bomb energy is due to the thermonuclear part? What was the cost of the tests and weaponisation?

.

A: (RC) - As regards what fraction - the total was 45 kT. The fission trigger was equivalent to that of the fission device.
*******

The answers are being provided by knowledgeble scientists fist hand therefore we should safely asume that they are speaking truth(facts).

So they were saying that the test were succesful and are saying categorically Hydrogen aka Fusion device was tested and worked.

SO far so good based on this vouching GOI drafts a strategy to contain and minimize the diplomatic fall out of the testing and to usuage unkils and aunties declares unilateral moritorium ( I was opposed to this move as I thought GOI played its trump card even before the cards wer completely know in our hand as well s unkils hand)

So DAE thinking it may have to test again after GOI declares unilareral moritorium is like my days at cricket (being out first ball , I scream firat ball is trial ball does not count!)

You (ldevji) now trying a floater that DAE is not at fault but GOI under NDA did not have balls to test again, brings us to the question which Arun ji asking. Is RC worth believeing and poor Kalam ji was also lead the golden path in the press conference ( Kalam ji is know entusiast of any thing Indian, recall his meeting Ramar pillai of herbal petrol fame).

I was alo lead the golden path amd took no opportunity to pooh pooh Wallace from day one. Looks like Wallace could also be partially true to say Maha bum fizzled.

Now having lead the country down that path of "not true" or because the truthines of RC AK is partial (like theburn/fusion), and the very same are now cooing the line of MMS to give Hyde act green signal... makes one wonder about deterrent posture in totality. At best it is not Minimum but Minimal to dismal deterrent. This also explains why uncle aunties and NPA s are pushing India to sign the deal.

so in conclusion as usual you have contirbuted more than two paisa that you started with.
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Post by ldev »

Jaan Snowji,

In Bharat (since you have lived there), the power of the politician over the babu (looking to his retirement) is well known. Who knows what was the dynamic between the gorment and the babus in DAE in the *heady* days immediately after POK 2?

Should a triumphant ABV or DAE officials have had any kind of press conference announcing anything at all? Or should they have been more like the traditional P5 who announced virtually nothing of their tests in terms of yields and only declassified them years later?

When the NDA announced it was crossing the *raging river* with all its currents balancing the country of India on its head as it attempted the perilous crossing, it cannot give up halfway across the river because a nice boat with Talbott came along and Jassoji decided to climb into the boat and have chai-biskoot for the rest of the crossing. When you jump into the akhara, you better finish the fight and not give up halfway.

Now 10 years later zamana alag hai i.e. it is a different time, place and the climate is different. Now you guys screaming for a test want India to jump again into the waters of the raging river. When you were in the water in 1998 why did you got out of the water into Talbott's boat? So who is the real constable here, MMS or Jassoo? Jassoo was told by his own DAE that we need to test again but decided to follow US diktat instead. Sorry John Jaan. Sometimes our idols have feet of clay or knees off.... :wink:

OK, so maybe DAE blundered in the first few days by going in post haste for a press conference that should never have been conducted within days of the tests and being under pressure to say the politically correct thing that the tests were a glowing success.. However it is clear from the article posted by me that within months DAE knew it was wrong and had to test again. So what happened to the NDA then? Why did they not test again? Why did they loose their nerve? So who is the real constable here? MMS who in a different zamana is trying to make to the best of what India has, or ABV/Jasoo who having jumped into the river decided to climb onto Talbott's boat when the current became too strong, for chai/biskoot for the rest river crossing, while their own DAE was telling them to test again?

Bottom line is that the hurdles to be crossed for testing are immense for India and have always been immense because of the geopolitical situation. Once you decide to jump into the testing river, you MUST cross it. You CANNOT loose your nerve halfway across because the cost of jumping again into the river is very high. The NDA did a great disserive to India by jumping into the river and then panicking halfway across the river. And now the Science Community is being blamed by you and other eminent personalities here for the faults of the politicians.
Last edited by ldev on 25 Apr 2008 07:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by NRao »

In addition to (re)testing, I find the following very disturbing:
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Anil Kakodkar on Tuesday said India was faced with the serious challenge of enhancing uranium production.
When they have been building reactors that take years to bring on-line, how can they not take care of providing the fuel to keep them humming? Assuming it was not a deliberate act, then it has to be a deliberate mis-plan. Which the US is taking advantage of and for some strange reason the current GoI is signing off on.

I recall reading in India Today (Nov, 2007 issue?) that the US visitors, including H Kissinger had attempted to twist arms, and, hinted that relations could go south if this deal was not signed.

A deal that will increase Indian nuclear energy component from some 3% to at most 8%, why so much noise? And, a recent talk by AK that India will never be given the leading edge techs, why not wait? India is not NK to fear a reversal on the part of the US. The US needs India in other areas.
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Post by csharma »

I am not sure what the idea is. Since NDA did not test again, we should sign the nuclear deal and support people like MMS whose commitment to the nuclear weapons program is suspect.

Even if NDA did test at that time, it did not put India in a position where India could not test again. The voluntary moratarium is something that India can break anytime. This was mentioned by LKA in the duel with
MMS on the nuke deal in the Lok Sabha last year when MMS spoke about NDA's moratarium.
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Post by Arun_S »

1. Ldev, so, when it comes to saving the pathetic skin of ones friends/accomplices, even quoting sources who would be labelled by some as NPA's (had they been quoted by others), and references who quote such sources is fine! But these arguments do not hold any water since the contradictions between the claims of your friend Maverick (or shall we refer to him by his real name) and the public pronouncements of RC and the GoI are quite explicit!

2. S-1 was a flop and that fact was known almost immediately! Why didn't RC EXPLICITLY inform GoI of this? At this stage, assuming that RC had spoken the truth, and, there was pressure put on him to lie, he could have put in his papers. That option was always there! Incidentally, RC was intimately aware of the sanctions regime that would immediately follow!

3. Why did RC go on public record in his press conference and state that S-1 was a TN, and tacitly deny that it was an FBF? This not only plunges the worth of RC's stock to a level lower than junk bonds, it also smears and tarnishes the Nations image! He could have stated that S-1 was an attempt to achieve a TN device/burn and kept things at that. Instead, he consistently tried and has continued to defend the indefensible, and produce some cooked up figures to support his claims! The argument of "flowing along with *raging waters*" is toothless waffle, and a poor attempt to cover up an event of National disgrace, of which RC and the DAE were an integral part of!

4. Why the systematic character assassination by some persons, of people who claimed that S-1 was a flop?

5. In certain cases, silence in itself is tantamount to guilt! This is especially true in matters where a Nations existence is at stake! So the tacit connivance of RC, AK and crew in the cover up cannot be discounted, overlooked, or forgiven!

6. Why the support of the 123/NSG deal, which makes further testing an almost impossibility? Does one define a National Deterrent based on the results of a single failed test?

You should enlighten us on the above !!!
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Post by ldev »

Arun_S wrote:1. Ldev, so, when it comes to saving the pathetic skin of ones friends/accomplices, even quoting sources who would be labelled by some as NPA's (had they been quoted by others), and references who quote such sources is fine! But these arguments do not hold any water since the contradictions between the claims of your friend Maverick (or shall we refer to him by his real name) and the public pronouncements of RC and the GoI are quite explicit!
I would suggest that if you have differences with Maverick, you should go on to his blog to post any rebuttal since I believe from reading his blog that he is barred from posting on this forum while there is no bar for you to post on his blog.
2. S-1 was a flop and that fact was known almost immediately! Why didn't RC EXPLICITLY inform GoI of this? At this stage, assuming that RC had spoken the truth, and, there was pressure put on him to lie, he could have put in his papers. That option was always there! Incidentally, RC was intimately aware of the sanctions regime that would immediately follow![/b]
How do you know that RC did not inform GOI explicitly about it? Are any of us privy to communication between DAE and the PMO? How can anyone not suppose that PMO told DAE to speak with "one voice" about the "success" of S1? Maybe, maybe not. But can anyone including you be really sure of what was communicated between those two government departments? If you have a source who said otherwise, you should post it on this thread.
3. Why did RC go on public record in his press conference and state that S-1 was a TN, and tacitly deny that it was an FBF? This not only plunges the worth of RC's stock to a level lower than junk bonds, it also smears and tarnishes the Nations image! He could have stated that S-1 was an attempt to achieve a TN device/burn and kept things at that. Instead, he consistently tried and has continued to defend the indefensible, and produce some cooked up figures to support his claims! The argument of "flowing along with *raging waters*" is toothless waffle, and a poor attempt to cover up an event of National disgrace, of which RC and the DAE were an integral part of![/b]
The event of "national disgrace" was something of which the NDA government was also a part off. You cannot say the Science Community is in disgrace while the NDA government is lily white clean. The decision to publicize that S1 was a success while it may have been a failure could not have been RC's alone simply because RC has not been blamed for it either by the NDA or the UPA governments. The only blame on him appears on this BRF thread, nowhere else.
5. In certain cases, silence in itself is tantamount to guilt! This is especially true in matters where a Nations existence is at stake! So the tacit connivance of RC, AK and crew in the cover up cannot be discounted, overlooked, or forgiven!
What about the explicit silence of the NDA government? For 4 years and 9 months after the Nucleonics story by Mark Hibbs came out, and while they were still in power until 2003, they did no further testing of a TN device. What about the nation's existence then? Was that not a cover up as well?
6. Why the support of the 123/NSG deal, which makes further testing an almost impossibility? Does one define a National Deterrent based on the results of a single failed test?


Point out one clause in the 123 agreement or the Hyde Act which goes beyond the NNPA of 1978 in terms of penalties for testing? IMO the penalties for India testing were/are the same in 1980, 1990, 2000 and if the 123 agreement is signed.

You should enlighten us on the above !!!


I hope I have!!
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Post by ramana »

Folks no more personal attacks or insinuations. Thanks, ramana
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Post by darshan »

People are assuming that politicians are as knowledgeable as scientists.

Why would some politician trust the same team that had known about importance of testing and failed to deliver?

IMO, scientists could have walked off from testing if they were not confident in the first place instead of testing and pressuring govt to test it again after failure.

I personally would think twice about the team that quickly came back demanding to test again. What did they change so quickly that made them so confident? If it was something they could change so quickly, then it probably was their systematic error.
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Post by bala »

IMHO, I see this exercise in getting to absolute truth (which is very hard IMO) about S1 results pointless. Either way, whether the results were 100% success, Partial success, no success (very doubtful on this), the fact remains that India still needs to test. Why, because the number of tests are way below what the others have done to provide a useful arsenal of deterrent for themselves.

The question is how do we get to a place/environment/condition where India can conduct say 10-20 tests at the very least without the usual worldwide flak and retribution.
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Post by ramdas »

I hope to stop posting on this topic after this. I feel that we should avoid attacking the DAE scientists/engineers as people with NPA like agendas might take advantage of it in ways we may not anticipate. For example, commies may come up with a line of "anyhow our deterrent is no good.. so why play these games ? may as well disarm". This is definitely not in national interest.

At the very least, the DAE (with whatever shortcomings it may have) has proven it is capable of making reliable boosted fission weapons. While these may not be optimum, with sufficient delivery systems India can field a number of boosted fission warheads in the 60-100kt range or more without doubt. This is much better than any nuke nudity of any sort. It could grow to be reasonably credible for the time being provided we accelerate fissile material production . After all, these days many P5 seem to hold 100kt weapons by and large . Of course, they would have better yield/weight ratio.

Of course, we should try moving towards testing TN's in the future to optimize the deterrent. Any attempt to build up public opinion towards this should however, be done in a way that does not give the wrong entities a handle to turn public opinion anti-deterrent altogether.

Also, even if the secondary of S1 did not work as expected, that by itself should not be called a national disgrace. After all, experiments may/may not work. Sublette's site indicates that the US itself had its share of fizzles. This in a program with no testing/resource constraints whatsoever.
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Post by Arun_S »

Ldev wrote:I would suggest that if you have differences with Maverick, you should go on to his blog to post any rebuttal since I believe from reading his blog that he is barred from posting on this forum while there is no bar for you to post on his blog.
1) From your initial post today, it appears that you have implicitly chosen, for whatever reasons, to provide rationales and explanations for this persons bogus statements! However, it is an inescapable fact, that you have subscribed to this peculiar train of "thought" / "logic" on this thread (13-April):
India never claimed to have a TN device. The official press releases from 1998 make references only to a boosted fission device.
You withdrew your statement after being presented with overwhelming facts to the contrary. While I attributed your withdrawal of your statements to you being a reasonable person, let us analyze what you actually stated in your retraction on 14-April:
As far as the Press Release is concerned, it was something that happened 10 years ago and I am not a walking/talking databank of GOI press releases dating back 10 years.
This is a very convenient but clumsy way of opting out of a tight situation! The assertion that GoI never claimed to have a TN device (i.e. GoI never stated that S-1 was a TN test) was the focus of your original statement on 13-April. The fictitious arguments about GoI announcements appear to have been employed in an attempt to further qualify/support your assertion! The reasons for your using these arguments are known only to you!

2) Let's get down to some straight talking and let me tell you that your retraction was far from convincing! Announcement of a Nuclear Weapon test by a Nation whose interest you purport to support will stick in your mind for a very long time. There is a substantial qualitative, strategic, and political distinction between a TN test and an FBF test.

A person like yourself, who purports himself as being knowledgeable about nuclear matters, amongst a myriad of other issues, doesn't need to be a databank of GoI press releases to recollect such an event and the nature of the test!

Ldev wrote:"If you have a source who said otherwise, you should post it on this thread."
If I had sources this effect, I would be careful to even mention them, let alone post their identities on a public thread!
Ldev wrote:The event of "national disgrace" was something of which the NDA government was also a part off. You cannot say the Science Community is in disgrace while the NDA government is lily white clean.
1.) That the NDA regime was certainly led to this false conclusion, was no doubt influenced in no small part by the SciCom! I would say that each (the NDA and SciCom) fed off the frenzy of each other! Knowing the fact that Indian politicians are almost totally illiterate on issues of science, and there is no culture of competition in Indian science that would allow for an independent verification (like LANL vs LLNL, etc...), the moral and professional onus was on the SciCom to STRESS the truth, inform the GoI of the consequences of making false statements of this nature, and resign if their words of caution went unheeded!

Instead, they (the SciCom) went head over heels trying to stake/grab their claim to greatness! In the end, they got their 15 minutes of fame, followed by a lifetime of contempt and suspicion from their peers (some domestic and mostly International), and, placed the Nation in a state of grave jeopardy!

2.) Is the NDA regime clean in this fiasco? The answer is NO!!! When reports of S-1 being a flop started filtering out, a re-test should have been ordered, regardless of the consequences!

3.) This still doesn't absolve RC of his press statements and presentation and publication of unsubstantiable data, to defend the indefensible, or, for not putting in his papers, and perpetuating a blatant lie!
Ldev wrote:"Point out one clause in the 123 agreement or the Hyde Act which goes beyond the NNPA of 1978 in terms of penalties for testing?"
In summary, India signing onto the 123/NSG deal, which is governed by the Hyde Act, tacitly and legally binds India, and acknowledges India's acquiesce to the CRE objectives of the Hyde Act with regards to India's deterrent. If the UPA regime was so concerned about protecting India's strategic interests, it would have explicitly put down in the 123 text that domestic laws are not binding on the nuclear deal! The NDA was far from perfect, but at least it did not agree to such humiliating terms!
Ldev wrote:I hope I have!!........
Far from it! You've just reinforced my doubts and concerns, and those of many other people (I am sure), about a lot of issues!
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Post by Arun_S »

Ramdas: Being an optimist, I like to think/hope that all Indians are on the same side, except of course communists and NPA groups (de-racinated idiots who can be trusted to not think of India first).

Incidentally, the failure of the S-1 is not a National disgrace. It is the persistent lack of admission, and the absence (and even derailment) of measures to correct this flaw (regardless of the regimes involved) which is!

Given the fact that the primary of S-1 worked flawlessly, I hope that the discussions herein hinge on 3 separate paths:

1. A deterrent based on FBF's assuming that the heinous 123/NSG deal goes through. This is a worst case scenario!

2. A modus-operandi for allowing India to test more devices, and develop a credible TN deterrent, without being subject to undue harassment! This point was astutely raised by Bala in a recent post.

3. Political scenarios in India's neighborhood that would facilitate point 2 (above)

I request inputs on further possibilities from the BRF community!
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Post by ramdas »

Ramdas: Being an optimist, I like to think/hope that all Indians are on the same side, except of course communists and NPA groups (de-racinated idiots who can be trusted to not think of India first).
Even if the commies and NPA groups are a puny minority, they do reside in positions from where they can affect public opinion (DDM etc) . So, one has to be careful. Mistakes may have happened in the past. Again, what we know may be only part of the story. DAE cannot be as open as ISRO for obvious reasons. Anything that happens must happen within DAE.

If RT instabilities alone caused the secondary of S1 to fail if it indeed failed, there may be an option 1.5 I have outlined in earlier posts.
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Post by Sanku »

Kudos Arun_S; my two bits on your last question -- LIF is the way to go -- given the ITER article that was posted and the confidence in Japan and Germany going for TNs even when they have not tested before suggests that LIF may be the easiest option today in terms of political and other costs.

The other questions can only be answered when UPA goes and/or the next Govts constitution is known -- if Dr Singh is continued to be given the PMs chair -- I think we are in dark days -- the questions of possibility will depend heavily on the nature and mandate of the next Govt.

AK was being quite true when he said that it is all about politics -- this is not about energy and not even about TNs even -- it is in the end about idea of India and its representation in Indian politics. Some reading between the lines of AKs statement is really needed since he was forced into accepting 123.
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Post by John Snow »

Ok so we have partial deterrent depending on whose version we have to beleive.
So we do have minimal deterrent alright.
That means instead of 750. Bums we need to have atleast twice and mirved to have the same bang.
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Post by SaiK »

Yes!! the point is we have graduated to be in fusion club!~. We can rectify, augment and do stealthy tests underground 2000 ft below sea level, optimize it, etc.

Also, the point is actually, our deterrance should be not country specific, hence its important to find that our fusion is really meant for fusing all types of adversaries.

If we could deliver 6 MIRVed fusions for 6 flower points, and its monitored by sats with anti-sat guard, then we are setting a stage for our doctrine.

quoting PKI :-
The fact that the explosions were fully contained indicates that the yield was very close to the predicted value. (The depth at which the test needs to be carried out depends sensitively on the yield. Had the actual yield been even slightly above the design value, there would have been a radioactive fallout.)
We want GoI to invest in mil facilities to do subcriticals and other explosiong tests.
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Post by svinayak »

Rajeev Srinivasan

The deal that refuses to die

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/23rajeev.htm

April 23, 2008

The discussions about the proposed nuclear deal between India and the United States are much in the news because of several reasons:

* the apparent preparations being made by the UPA to sign the treaty
* the continuing ritualistic mating dance between the UPA and the Communists about "will they pull support, won't they?", and noises being made by the UPA about general elections
* the increasing urgency on the American side, which went so far as to declare that it would be satisfied by an endorsement by a minority/caretaker government in India!

The deal has been analysed to death in India over the last three or four years, and so you, gentle reader, may legitimately wonder why I write about it yet again. The reason is that the situation is so complex, with the impenetrable Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement, and the inflexible positions taken by so many experts, that I felt it was appropriate to step back and look at the thing from first principles.

In my humble opinion, there are three aspects to the deal:

1. Energy security. High interest for India, moderate interest for the US
2. Non-proliferation and weaponiation. Non-proliferation of high interest to the US; weaponisation of high interest to India
3. Strategic partnership. Moderate to high interest for both countries

After considering these three in turn, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that India does not gain an advantage in any of them individually if it proceeds with the so-called deal. Therefore it is beyond comprehension how, mysteriously, when you put all three negatives together, you get a wonderfully positive overall deal.

The complexity of the deal and the interminable Hyde Act and 123 Agreement tend to obscure what India actually gains. Add to this the opaqueness with which the UPA government has tried to shove it down the throats of the Indian public -- the secrecy implies they have a lot to hide.

The sceptical observer is left with the inescapable conclusion that something stinks. It is a bad deal for India, period.
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Post by Raj Malhotra »

I think that they will be breakout of testing around 2020 as the people who have tested nukes in P-5 retire. At that time we should be ready for 20-30 tests in one go over a period of a week.


The second option is that we transfer technology to "x" nation and test on its soil. Couple of rudimentary tests for the benefit of the said nation and sophisticated tests for ourselves.


Third option is that we test ourselves and tell USA to shove it.
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Post by ramana »

OK what will be response if US develops no fission based fusion weapons? CTBT allows that as an article in "Science" had stated in 1996. You can google for that.

Right now the horror of TN use is the afteraffects of long term radiation from teh fission part of the weapon. The P-5 as usual will proliferate among themselves. Where will India stand then?
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Post by SaiK »

dont we have enough con-CERN-ed scientists who would be capable of using antihydrogens to join the club as well?
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Post by satyarthi »

SaiK wrote:dont we have enough con-CERN-ed scientists who would be capable of using antihydrogens to join the club as well?
It takes much more effort to create anti-protons than to just fuse two hydrogen nucleii together. Even though you get much more energy when hydrogen and anti-hydrogen nucleii fuse (100% conversion), there is the great difficulty of creating sufficient amounts of anti-matter. The fact is that it will cost more energy to create an anti-proton than the output when anti-proton and proton annihilate each other. Storage of anti-protons is very difficult too, since they can't come into contact with material walls before the intended explosion. For magnetic confinement to work, the anti-protons need to be moving fast (not just random thermal movement, but directed movement). So a toroidal cavity with sufficiently high density of moving anti-protons held together by strong magnetic fields generated by heavy superconducting magnets can act like a bomb. But in the foreseeable future, the yields are not going to be worth the trouble.

Nature too uses nuclear fusion overwhelmingly in stars, not matter-anti-matter annihilation.

Also such a bomb riding an ordinary missile is hard to imagine. May be a space borne weapon system, a mini death-star (star wars fame, the original, not Reagan's).
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Post by Arun_S »

ramana wrote:OK what will be response if US develops no fission based fusion weapons? CTBT allows that as an article in "Science" had stated in 1996. You can google for that.

Right now the horror of TN use is the aftereffects of long term radiation from teh fission part of the weapon. The P-5 as usual will proliferate among themselves. Where will India stand then?
Yes CTBT does not prevent fusion only weapon. (Only fission chain reaction is prohibited). Fusion does not involve chain reaction.

Pure fusion weapon's radioactive fallout is very clean and the tiny radioactivity it does leave is very short lived.

BTW pure fusion weapons are ~5 years away from reality. That is one of the reason the tarp door (called NPT, CTBT) has to be closed and sealed shut in these 2-3 years.

Because there is no criticality requirement, the yield can be 0.5 tonne or 10 tonne or 100 tonne, and the package mass scales more linearly.

For example UCAV can deliver 4 tiny packets for air burst and create a huge shockwave at designated surface target, and there will be scarecely any deterring radioactive left to go overrun and occupy that piece of real estate. Think of it as a weapon whose radioactive fallout is few order smaller than Neutron Bomb. It make the weapon more useable almost at par with large conventional weapon.

The key is the the small non-fission trigger (primary stage) required to implode the fusion stage.

Is it real/ difficult / impossible!!
One only has to think of the first nuclear weapon, that seemed impossible to greatest physicist's and engineers only a few year before the first test.

As Hans Beth of Manhattan project later said "The secret of Nuclear weapon is that it can be done"
Last edited by Arun_S on 25 Apr 2008 22:11, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SaiK »

but then, those would be all for tactical weapons.
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Post by Arun_S »

SaiK wrote:but then, those would be all for tactical weapons.
One universal weapon for tactical or semi strategic or even strategic use, with out the horror stigma of radioactive cloud of Armageddon.

The slippery road will begin with replacing the the mushroom cloud maker using conventional bombs called B52, by a small drone that creates the same small mush cloud.
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Post by satyarthi »

Arun_S wrote: The key is the the small non-fission trigger (primary stage) required to implode the fusion stage.

Is it real/ difficult / impossible!!
One only has to think of the first nuclear weapon, that seemed impossible to greatest physicist's and engineers only a few year before the first test.
What is needed is a storage of large amount of energy and a mechanism to release that energy quickly.

Apparently collapsing cavitation bubbles can do that at a microscale creating some nuclear fusion. There were several papers on that a couple of years ago. But that is hardly a bomb, since the energy available is rather small.

1 kiloton of TNT = 4.184×10^12 J. Superconducting coils CAN provide this order of energy storage. Other options include powerful lasers.
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