Slashdot Mirror
Centrifuge May Be Superseded by Laser Enrichment
An anonymous reader writes "Australian scientists have discovered, after a decade of tests, a new way to enrich uranium for use in power plants." From the article: "There are at present only two methods for sifting uranium atoms, or isotopes, to create the right mix. One, called diffusion, involves forcing uranium through filters. Being lighter, U-235 passes through more easily and is thus separated from its heavier counterpart. The second method, widely adopted in the 1970s, uses centrifuges to spin the heavier and lighter atoms apart. Both, said Dr Goldsworthy, are 'very crude. You have to repeat the process over and over,' consuming enormous amounts of electricity. The spinning method requires 'thousands and thousands of centrifuges'."
Any sane person looking at pre-2003 Iraq would have assumed there were sequestered WMD stocks, as you point out above. This "Bush lied", "Bush manufactured" line of BS does not make any sense for Bush as he headed into an election year. If he knew there was not likely to be any WMD, to have set that down as one of the points of rationale for invasion would have been a political gamble with only downside, no upside. Hardly Rovian. Anyway, it's interesting to me that we've got the same folks urging us to go slow in attempting to stop Iranian nuclearization who 20 years ago were spitting on Reagan's picture and demanding an immediate end to nuclear weapons. The story remains the same: for the anti-Bush crowd it's not about the issues at hand, it's about loathing the US and all that it stands for at every given opportunity. And if that means allowing a madman in Tehran to get his hands on a nuke, so be it. If that means putting the burka back on millions of Afghani women, retracting their newfound right to vote, and returning them to a life of illiteracy, by all means, so be it.