Weapons-Grade Uranium Discovered In Nuclear Reactor Housed Inside Kodak Corporate Building

Kodak headquarters in Rochester, New York may be going through some reorganization at the moment as the company inches ever closer to bankruptcy but that doesn’t mean it fails to have a few tricks up its sleeve. For example the company was recently discovered to be storing 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium in a nuclear reactor inside one of its buildings as late as 2006.

Stored in a basement vault surrounded by cement walls and security guards the nuclear reactor was loaded with weapons-grade uranium.

What might be the strangest part of the discovery is that nobody knows why the uranium remained sitting in a basement vault at Kodak for such a long period of time. In fact until an ex-employee recently reported the materials local police, fireman and state of New York employees were unaware the material even existed.

A report by Gizmodo suggests that only a few engineers and Federal employees really knew about the project.

Miles Pomper of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington says its “such an odd situation because private companies just don’t have this material.”

3.5 pounds of weapons-grade uranium isn’t enough to construct a nuclear bomb, however illegal arms merchants are always looking for small amounts of the material they can sell on the black market, which is why the United States keeps such tight control over the material.

The Kodak reactor was apparently used to check materials for impurities and for neutron radiography testing. According to officials the reactor is a Californium Neutron Flux multiplier (CFX) that was purchased in 1974 and then closely guarded since that time.

Kodak says employees never used the device which amusingly led Gawker’s Jesus Diaz to proclaim that it was therefore operated by “atomic fairies and unicorns.”

The reactor was dismantled in 2006 following 9/11 safety concerns