Some thoughts: At 510 tons, and the price of cobalt from the “Prices of elements and their compounds” Wikipedia page, the cost of of a cobalt bomb of that size is strongly lower-bounded by $15 million dollars, which is at least economically feasible.
One can’t convert all cobalt in the bomb into cobalt-60 as cross-section is not very high. I read estimates that the total weight should be around 20 000 tons, see more in the chapter of the book “Doomsday men” by Smith.
I think that actual price will be closer to other nuclear projects ITER or LHC, and be in around 10 billions dollars, but it is still affordable for major nuclear powers..
Some thoughts: At 510 tons, and the price of cobalt from the “Prices of elements and their compounds” Wikipedia page, the cost of of a cobalt bomb of that size is strongly lower-bounded by $15 million dollars, which is at least economically feasible.
I also found some interesting pointers from the Wikipedia talk page for cobalt bombs.
More thoughts: The U.S. cobalt reserves appear to be around 23 thousand tons, which makes 510 tons feasible but not easy.
One can’t convert all cobalt in the bomb into cobalt-60 as cross-section is not very high. I read estimates that the total weight should be around 20 000 tons, see more in the chapter of the book “Doomsday men” by Smith.
I think that actual price will be closer to other nuclear projects ITER or LHC, and be in around 10 billions dollars, but it is still affordable for major nuclear powers..