Nuclear weapons are the most powerful weapons ever invented by mankind.
Unlike traditional weaponry, the significance of nuclear weapons is not limited to practical applications, its existence itself is a deterrent, and it is precisely because of this that at some special periods in history, human beings even launched a competition in the number of nuclear warheads. According to records, during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the number of nuclear warheads in the United States reached more than 27,000, and the Soviet Union reached 45,000 at the last moment. In contrast, the number of nuclear warheads held by countries is much smaller now than in that period, and according to previously released data, the number of nuclear warheads in the United States is about 3750. So the question is, everything has a shelf life, so is there a nuclear bomb? As we all know, to extend the shelf life of a product, it is necessary to provide a good preservation environment and maintenance services for it, is the cost of preservation of nuclear warheads high?
There are two main types of nuclear warheads, one is an atomic bomb made by relying on the principle of nuclear fission, and the other is a hydrogen bomb made by relying on the principle of nuclear fusion.
Speaking of atomic bombs, we will immediately think of an element, that is, uranium-235, in fact, it is not only uranium-235 that can make atomic bombs, but also plutonium-239. Most of the atomic bombs made in the early days were uranium bombs, but later people gradually turned their attention to plutonium bombs. Compared with uranium bombs, plutonium bombs have two typical advantages, one of which is that they are less difficult to manufacture. To make a uranium bomb, it is necessary to obtain the extremely pure uranium 235, which is only found in natural uranium mines and does not exceed 0.7%, and the rest is uranium 238. Therefore, in order to make a uranium bomb, it is necessary to purify uranium-235 first, and the difficulty of purification is very high.
To purify uranium-235, there are two main methods used at present, one is the gas diffusion method and the other is the gas centrifugation method.
Taking the gas centrifugation method as an example, the centrifuge used in it produces a centrifugal force equivalent to a million times of gravity through high-speed rotation, and its technical difficulty is very high. Take the uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, for example, which has 60,000 advanced gas centrifuges and can only increase the concentration of uranium-235 to about 30%, which is far from the 90% needed to produce nuclear weapons. Plutonium-239 is different, it is uranium-238 formed by neutron irradiation, so it only needs to be extracted from the nuclear waste generated by the nuclear power plant, obviously, the difficulty of making plutonium bombs is much lower. Another advantage of plutonium bombs over uranium bombs is their high power.
Because plutonium is a more toxic radioactive element and has poor stability, plutonium bombs are far more powerful than uranium bombs when they are of the same mass.
So does plutonium bomb have shelf life? It must be admitted that the shelf life of the plutonium bombs manufactured in the early days is relatively short, why? Because it contains impurities. Plutonium-239 is produced in the nuclear waste of nuclear power plants, but nuclear reactors can produce not only plutonium-239, but also plutonium-240, and the presence of plutonium-240 is an infectious disease for plutonium-239. Plutonium-239 is an extremely stable element with a half-life of up to 24,000 years, while plutonium-240 has a half-life of 6,569 years, but the decay process of plutonium-240 is not simply to release an alpha particle, but to split into smaller atoms and release neutrons through spontaneous fission.
The neutrons released by the spontaneous fission of plutonium-240 will be captured by other plutonium-239, and the plutonium-239 that captures one neutron will become a new plutonium-240, so that, like an infectious disease, the number of plutonium-239 will become smaller and smaller, and eventually the nuclear warhead will fail.
Because of this, the lifespan of the early production of plutonium bombs is only about 10 years, and the longest will not exceed 15 years. However, now the situation is different, due to the progress of the level of technology, the separation technology of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 has been quite mature, and most of the materials used to manufacture nuclear weapons, the content of plutonium-240 has been controlled below 2.3%, in this proportion, the life of the atomic bomb has been greatly extended, and the shelf life can basically exceed one hundred years. After talking about the atomic bomb, let's talk about the hydrogen bomb, does the hydrogen bomb have a shelf life?
At present, the fusion material used in hydrogen bombs is lithium deuteride, obviously, deuterium and lithium have no half-life, so there is no problem of long-term failure, and the shelf life of hydrogen bombs is longer than that of atomic bombs.
Therefore, as long as the nuclear warhead is produced, it can be stored for a long time, and there is no need to worry about the problem of expiration. So is the cost of preservation high? These nuclear warheads themselves have a long shelf life, and there is basically no factor that can affect their shelf life in the conventional environment, so the cost of preservation is not high at all. Generally speaking, the warehouse where nuclear weapons are stored is nothing special, just ordinary cement structures, taking the United States as an example, even in the process of transporting nuclear weapons, it is only the use of ordinary trucks, the difference is that this truck is painted a bright orange-red color, and only transported during the day, very recognizable.