Word: fission
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...been an open secret in the intelligence community that bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization have long lusted after nukes. The consensus in Washington is that the group does not have a true nuclear-fission device, though it may well have what is known as a radiological weapon or "dirty bomb"--a conventional explosive packed with radioactive debris. Whatever bin Laden's got, he has made any number of attempts to get more. As early as the mid-1990s, intelligence sources tell TIME, bin Laden's agents began cruising the black markets of Europe and Asia looking for pirated...
...seems ironic that nuclear energy is widely regarded as a greater environmental threat than dams, even though fission--with the jarring exceptions of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island--has caused relatively little harm. There may be huge calamities in its future, and its fiercely toxic fission products still have no demonstrably safe burial place. But dams, for all their material blessings, are responsible for some of the worst environmental tragedies in history...