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The reason why plutonium is so dangerous when it gets into the lungs is because plutonium releases radiation to a small mass of the lung at a very short distance. This effect of radiation from plutonium giving a concentrated dose to one small area is much greater than if the same amount of radiation had been uniformly distributed throughout the lung. Another problem with plutonium is its toxicity. Plutonium is the most toxic of all elements. Fred H. Knelman, who was a senior executive on the nuclear control panel in Washington D.C., wrote, ?One pound of plutonium-239, distributed to the lungs of a large population, could cause between ten and fifteen million lung-cancer deaths? (32).

Plutonium is rapidly becoming more and more common throughout the world because it is being produced all the time in nuclear reactions. The Nuclear Control Institute, in Washington D.C., published a paper on the Internet describing the problem of plutonium production.

By the turn of the century, 1,400 metric tons of plutonium will have been produced in the spent fuel of nuclear power reactors, and some 300 tons of it will have been separated into weapons-usable form. Less than 18 pounds (8 kilograms) is needed to build a Nagasaki-type bomb. The amounts will continue to grow rapidly. By 2010, there will be 550 tons of separated plutonium in commerce, more than twice the amount now contained in the world?s nuclear arsenals. By that time, Japan will have acquired an amount of plutonium equivalent to the present U.S. military stockpile. (?The Problem?, 2)

The quote above has a few hidden statements behind it. First it predicts that soon other nations will have a greater nuclear arsenal than the U.S.A. Also the quote says that plutonium is growing to be an excess product from nuclear reactions and thus other countries who are not economically stable will have a greater tendency to want to sell some plutonium to power hungry politicians for money to help the economy of their own country.

The subject of plutonium directly relates to nuclear terrorism. The terrorists? holy grail is to build a nuclear bomb. It is becoming increasingly easy to find the knowledge on how to build a nuclear bomb. The only thing that is holding terrorists back is getting their hands on some plutonium or weapons-grade uranium.

Christopher K. Mitchell, a student under professor J. Ruvalds, wrote a research report in physics 177N class that stated that when constructing a nuclear weapon, there would be two main issues for a terrorist. The first issue would be the knowledge required about building the bomb and making it work. Essentially, this knowledge is not a great problem. For instance, anyone can purchase a copy of “The Los Alamos Primer” for approximately twenty-three dollars. This book details the work of scientist who participated in the Manhattan Project tests in New Mexico. Inside the book, a terrorist could find the amount of uranium needed to create a successful nuclear explosion. In addition, the book details the different types of nuclear bombs and how to construct them. According to Carson Mark, a nuclear weapons specialist, a terrorist group would need some specialist, such as a nuclear physicist, a chemist, and an explosives engineer to build a nuclear weapon. In addition, some specialized equipment would be required. The second issue of building a nuclear weapon is the material needed to fuel the chemical reaction. Of the two issues, this one creates a much larger problem. Until recently, it was nearly impossible for a terrorist to even consider obtaining either bomb grade plutonium or uranium. In the past, these bomb grade fuels would have been nearly impossible to steal and the price to purchase such materials was far above the budget of any terrorist group. Many experts feel that it would cost at least five to ten million dollars to purchase enough plutonium to make a nuclear weapon. Others place the estimate as high as twenty or thirty million dollars (2). The problems of obtaining money and scientists are not big. The Soviet Union has left many of its top nuclear scientists without jobs and money. Many would be happy to get out of their crime ridden country to work for a terrorist group or another country associated with terrorism like Iran or Iraq. Money is not a problem for these two countries who hold some of the world?s biggest oil reserves. This paragraph represents only one type of terrorism that can be done with money and talent but what can other terrorist groups do who don?t have very much money?

One very vulnerable terrorist target is the nuclear powerplants. Scott D. Portzline, who has a Ph.D. is nuclear physics, writes that :

Considering the fact that a nuclear plant houses more than a thousand times the radiation as released in an atomic burst, the magnitude of a single attack could reach beyond 100,000 deaths and the immediate loss of tens of billions of dollars. The land and properties destroyed (your insurance won’t cover nuclear disasters) would remain useless for decades and would become a stark monument reminding the world of the terrorists’ ideology. With more than 100 reactors in the United States alone, if one is successfully destroyed, just threatening additional attacks could instill the sort of high-impact terror which is being sought by a new breed of terrorists. (1)

For years, what has caused concern for many observers and several federal oversight committees is a report on the potential for damage from truck bombs.

Unacceptable damage to vital reactor systems could occur from a relatively small charge at close setback distances, and from larger but still reasonable-sized charges at large setback distances, greater than the protected area for most plants. (?Nuclear Terrorism?, 2)

This represents the Nuclear Report Committee’s most feared result. At some plants,

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