W7T1

In the 21th centuries, nuclear reactors have been built for research or power. However, they have possessed the potential of providing the raw material for nuclear booming. With the wide publication of instructions for building explosive devices, terrorism can become a serious threat to every nations today. Normally, terrorists have to obtain fissile material — plutonium or highly enriched uranium capable of rapid nuclear fission. These highly enriched bomb-grade uranium and plutonium which are ideal fuels for nuclear explosives can be found on any nuclear reactors. In fact, engineering play the roles of finding all the dangerous nuclear material in the world and tracking it in order to avoid abusing by terrorists. So there are several steps to protect the materials. Firstly, engineers have to secure those nuclear materials. Secondly, they have to know how to detect them within a distance. Thirdly, engineers learn how to design a potential device safely. Emergency backup, cleanup, and public communication after a nuclear explosion are also especially important. The most importantly, engineers must also have to determine who did it. Besides, for another case like “dirty bombs” which might cause health disturbance, deaths, contamination and economic havoc, engineering changes from monitoring to cleanup, of both people and places. In case, potential sources of radioactive material are scattered about the globe, preventing access is very hard. To certify that a country using nuclear power just for generating energy is not easy. To oppose this problem, engineers have developed a passive device near a reactor which could transmit real-time data on the reactor’s contents, to detect any lost of plutonium. Consequently, preventing their transportation to a place of use has gradually become an significant issue. Individual inspection of each container would be costly and very disruptive as many goods are legitimately imported into the country within large shipping containers. Many ways of detecting nuclear materials hidden in such containers have been used, but most of them bring negative results. In conclusion, engineers have to face these new possible challenges with the time. By the good understanding of nature’s nuclear secrets provided by physics, engineering are to be encouraged to challenge themselves in the future.

Summarized from
National Academy of Engineering, "Prevent nuclear terror," Available at: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9134.aspx