CHINA’S ALLEGED NON-NUCLEAR H-BOMB

Yes you read that headline correctly, and that headline is why we're starting off this week's blogs with this story, which was shared (with our very deep gratitude) by S.C.G.  The story is that China claims to have successfully tested a "non-nuclear hydrogen bomb." Before you get your knickers all in a twist and say "that's impossible", bear with me, because as we're going to discover in today's high octane speculation, there are three basic possible modes of interpreting the Chinese claims, and they're all rather stunning, and they're all - if true - military game changers.  So, without further ado, here's the story:

Now, let's deal with the claims of the headline alone, before delving into the article. If there is to be such a thing as a non-thermonuclear hydrogen bomb, i.e., a conventional bomb that is able to create an explosion so large it rivals that of a tactical nuclear weapon, and without the nasty radioactive fallout that always accompanies a nuclear weapon's use, then a little reflection would suggest that there are three possible basic ways of doing so: (1) use hydrogen as the oxidizer in a conventional explosive, rather like how nitrogen and oxygen are used in chemical explosives, where the nitrogen and oxygen are bound chemically to the rest of the explosive. When the detonation occurs, the oxidizers allow the rapid burn of the explosion to occur. This is the "standard" design of explosives; (2) Use atmospheric hydrogen as the oxidizer in a fuel air explosive.  This use of atmospheric oxidizer is what makes a fuel air bomb so gigantic, rivaling the size of tactical nuclear weapons in explosive power, for the explosive agent does not carry its own oxidizer, but rather relies on the ability to use local ambient atmospheric gas as its oxidizer. This method is a closely held secret but the concept I suspect is obvious enough. Indeed, in the early thermonuclear era, before the United States had tested its first hydrogen bomb, there was concern that the detonation would initiate a chain reaction in the planet's entire atmosphere, burning all its hydrogen, and leaving the planet a dead and barren rock. (3) The third and final, and most sought-after method, is to find a way to achieve fusion of hydrogen (usually lithium deuteride  and some tritium) without the use of an atomic bomb as the "fuse" needed to created the immense heat, pressure, and energies to slam those atoms together for the really big bang of a full scale hydrogen bomb. Notice that in conventional thermonuclear bomb engineering, it takes am atomic bomb to ignite the hydrogen bomb, and it is from the fission of uranium 235 or plutonium 239 that the deadly radioactive fallout products from nuclear detonations original. The fusion reaction releases a lot of radiation, but most of it is is the form of x- and gamma-rays.  Most of the "bad stuff" is coming from the fission reaction, including those fast neutrons. So the quest of thermonuclear engineering has always been for a means of initiating a fusion reaction (the really big explosion) without an a-bomb to set it off (a really big explosion without the nasty by-products).  The latter quest as birthed all sorts of stories about substances or methods able to accomplish this, from the Red Mercury legends (which I've talked about in my books), to the tests of the so-called "Ripple" technology during the last atmospheric test shot of the American Operation Dominic, a test which I have talked about with our friend and colleague Daniel Liszt (Dark Journalist) on his show.  This last test, according to publicly available information,  was the last atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb done by the United States in 1963, and was personally authorized by then-president Kennedy. The test allegedly achieved a fusion reaction that was "99.99 percent clean", i.e., with very little residual radioactive fallout.  Shortly after this test, the Soviet Union signed the nuclear test ban treaty, and my suspicion is that the USA, under Kennedy's prompting, shared the results of the test with the Soviets.  The reason for the sudden Soviet acquiescence is simple: if the USA did manage to explode a "clean" hydrogen bomb, then the unthinkable just became thinkable: one could achieve strategic destruction on a potential enemy without the radioactive fallout blowback on oneself.

Or to put it baldly and nakedly: nuclear war became possible.

But notice something else: on the level of the first two options - some sort of gigantic conventional explosion - strategic bombardment of a potential enemy is also possible. And it just may be that such hydrogen-assisted conventional explosions might generate shock waves that might initiate fusion, and much bigger explosions. Such were the claims of the Nazi-Argentinian physicist Dr. Ronald Richter (which I have covered in my book The Nazi International), and such have been some publicly aired claims since then for fusion reactors based on shockwaves in a plasma.  On this very speculative view and basis, one might then claim that hydrogen-assisted conventional explosives would be steps in a technology tree, if not to "clean" fusion bombs, then at least to conventional explosives  whose brisance approaches that of full order strategic fission weapons.

With these high octane speculations in mind, we may turn to the Chinese claims:

This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Chinese researchers successfully detonated a non-nuclear hydrogen bomb in a controlled field test, citing a peer-reviewed study published last month in the Chinese-language Journal of Projectiles, Rockets, Missiles and Guidance.

But then the article continues by outlining the basic technique used to achieve the alleged result:

Developed by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation’s 705 Research Institute, the device uses magnesium hydride—a solid-state hydrogen storage material originally engineered for off-grid energy applications—as its main component.

During activation, shockwaves break the material into micron-scale particles, releasing hydrogen gas. This gas ignites into sustained combustion and reaches temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius.

Unlike conventional TNT blasts, which produce a brief, extremely high-pressure shockwave, China’s new bomb creates a lower peak blast pressure but sustains its fireball for over two seconds, causing extended thermal damage and enabling directed energy effects.

In other words, the Chinese have combined a highly flammable material that burns at very high temperatures (magnesium), with a gas that can also burn quickly (hydrogen and the well-known Hindenburg disaster), and created a very powerful explosive that sustains a fireball - much like a nuclear weapon - for some time. The Chinese have opted to pursue option number one: they have effectively created a bomb very similar to a themobaric bomb in its effects, but via an unusual conventional explosive which carries its oxidizer with it. Lest anyone is in doubt about the explosive power of such weapons, the article also gives us this:

Michael Schmitt and Peter Barker mention in an April 2017 Just Security article that the US Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon, originally designed to be used against large troop formations or hardened aboveground bunkers, was thought to have a potent effect on Islamic State (IS) morale due to its reported 1.6-kilometer blast and the fact its detonation creates a mushroom cloud similar to a nuclear weapon.

A blast zone of a diameter of 1.6 kilometers is a blast diameter of exactly a mile, and on the order of a small nuclear weapon.  These weapons are, indeed, game changers, for bombardment of targets at strategic distances and to strategic levels of destruction need no longer be done just with nuclear weapons. In fact, with contemporary precision guidance, landing such a massive conventional explosion precisely on target no longer requires megatonnage yields to get "close" to a target to do that sort of damage.

So China's claim here, I think, must be taken very seriously. The production of such weapons might, indeed, explain why those explosions in Chinese chemical factories of a few years ago were so gigantic and so  very destruction. And one wonders if such new types of conventional explosives are not steps in the technology trees towards things like the Ripple test of Operation Dominic. What might happen if some engineer in some black project somewhere manages to talk his government out of a few million dollars, or rubles, or yuan, or yen or rupees, to test an implosion device utilizing magnesium hydride around a lithium-deuteride core that is itself already under extreme pressure. Would such a device produce a full-order fusion reaction? Probably not. But it might kick the brisance up a notch or two and be worth the effort anything.

If I can think of it, and you can think of it, rest assured, they already have, and might be well on the way to the next generation of the technology. Iran's nuclear program?  Yesterday's news, and yesterday's concerns.

See you on the flip side...

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1. Hydrogen as oxidizer in conventional explosive
2. Hydrogen as oxidizer in FAE
3. Red mercury and the Ripple test.