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NRC Accused of Ignoring Proliferation Risks With SILEX Enrichment
Harperdog writes "Scott Kemp has a disturbing look at SILEX, a new technology that 'happens to be well suited for making nuclear weapons.' There are many disturbing aspects the this article, not least that the NRC, which is required to consider the critical question of proliferation, has so far punted when it comes to examining that question. 'The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has refused to consider the proliferation risk in its decision to issue a license for the first commercial SILEX facility, despite a statutory obligation to do so. Only a few weeks remain for Congress to intervene.'"
Not everyone agrees that SILEX poses a real proliferation threat. Kind of a shame that its environmental benefits (lower power consumption and a smaller waste stream than existing processes) are what increase the proliferation risk.
So what are they supposed to do, make a law against using this technology? Yeah, that will work --NOT!
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I recall some of these debates around breeder reactors (which also have significant dual-use possibilities), and the arguments there were that, although obviously the U.S. already has nuclear weapons, it should nonetheless not use a dual-use-prone technology for its civilian reactors, because doing so: 1) sets a precedent that this is normal civilian nuclear technology and makes it harder to argue against other countries also using it; and 2) may bring the cost down and improve the practicalities so that it's easier for other countries to get one.
Not sure it's a good argument, but I think the arguments around SILEX would be basically the same.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The alternative is to not build a SILEX plant in the US.
And what will the results be? Will no one else build them? If the technical hurdle, as the article claims, is the laser system, and if they are getting easier to produce, then it seems unlikely that no one else will produce a SILEX plant.
Therefore, the danger does not stem from the US building a SILEX plant. It stems from laser research. So why doesn't the article insist we stop researching lasers?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
It will probably become easier to enrich uranium for anyone who has the resources to do it, whether or not this Silex technology is made commercial scale. It's not like the basics of the technology are a secret.
Does the USA realize that all this "we're running the world" stuff just makes foreign extremists angry? Even more determined to have it?
Imagine it was the other way around with some other country telling the USA what to do...
No sig today...
...in case you were wondering. An energy-efficient means of enriching uranium, worrisome because it would be harder to detect its use than older methods.
And noticed how we eventually dealt with breeder reactors? The nuclear treaties surrounding the distribution and use of fissionable material pretty much state that everyone may have what they need but need to allow international supervision that it's only used in power plants and not in nukes. Where's the problem with that? I mean, aside of some being more equal than others...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Gosh, with platitudes like that, you should run for office! It is very easy for politicians, who don't actually live in the same reality as the rest of us, to make such simplistic statements without offering any concrete or realistic suggestion as to how they would accomplish those ends.
Gov. Romney: If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if we elect Mitt Romney, they will not have a nuclear weapon. [Nov 12, 2011, GOP Debate in Spartanburg, S.C.]
Inquiring Media, fellow candidates, anyone with half a brain: How will you accomplish that, exactly?
Gov. Romney: [crickets]
Dude, I know it's hard when you didn't grow up in a country where you knew from the start that your media is lying, but at least spot propaganda when it hits you right in the face, will ya?
No, I'm not talking about Fox News and how they try to picture Ahmadingbats as a ravaging lunatic. I mean him himself. He is not a ravaging lunatic or a islamist madman, he's just a populist. That's all there is.
Now, don't get me wrong, I won't call the Iran a democracy. Hell, even the US is more of a democracy than that theocracy (because that's what the Iran actually is, under its thin blanket of show elections and whatnot). But even there elections exist, and even though the choices are pretty much akin to having the choice between an ultra-right wing idiot and a right wing loonie (i.e. pretty much as it is in the US, just with Allah instead of Economy+Jesus as the savior), Ahmadinejad wants to get reelected. So he tells the people what they want to hear. That he's a tough guy, that he'll smite their enemies and that he will not allow any outside force to change their way of life.
You'll hear something like that soon too, afaik prez elections are coming in the US.
And just like the US prez needs terrorists as an enemy element, Ahmi has Israel as a pet boogeyman.
Notice how his rants went dry lately? Well, duh, he can't be reelected, and the next elections are only due in about 2 years. You don't hear Obama rant about the threats of terror constantly either, do you?
And why does this appeal to the average Iranian? Because they're all islamistic madmen who want to wipe the Earth clean of everything that doesn't bow towards Mecca? Well. Let's take a look at the world map. For the average US American, try finding Russia and then look south of it, you might find Iran. To the left of it, Iraq. To the right, Afghanistan. Both countries that have been invaded (with so-so success) by the US.
Now imagine the Iran (or if you prefer some other boogeyman, try Russia or the UN) took over control of Mexico and Canada, and then ponder for a moment how you'd feel about the Iran, even if Fox News didn't bombard you constantly with the message how they're Teh Evilz and how they want to kill the lot of you.
This is how the average Iranian feels, I guess...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I for one support the continuous production of highly enriched nuclear material. Enriched nuclear material is not waste, and can be fed back into the reactor to make more energy. We should continue enriching the waste products until we've burned out most of it and have little waste left, though that might take 200,000 years or so. Considering the amount of nuclear material available, we may be able to add fresh material to the pile and have some 70% left over when it comes time for the sun to burn out.
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What are they going to do, pass a law making it illegal to ignore a statutory requirement?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Foreign extremists will be angry. About something. Always. This is all they do.
People who bomb civilians by surprise, in their homelands mostly BTW, are not people you ever consider having a valid agenda you can somehow appease by changing your own behavior.
Because it's not about your behavior. It is about their behavior, and their agenda, which would violently exist no matter what you said or did.
At some point you have to realize you have to oppose people on the basis of their lame agenda and their lame tactics as a simple matter of principle. THEIR agenda. Which would exist no matter how peaceful or not the West is or ever was. And in opposing them, you do not piss them off. Because they are already pissed off and interested in bombing anyone who opposes them already. Come to them with flowers, or come to them with a drone, they are already engaged in the business of murder according to their own teachings and desires, completely independent of anything in the West's agenda. It is the height of arrogance to assume you are the source of their menace. The source of their menace is their own ideology, created completely on their own, completely having nothing to do with the West. You would know this, if you saw the obvious truth that the greatest victim of these a**holes are their own people, in their own homelands.
This whole premise of appeasing radical hotheads is a complete nonstarter. You don't appease them. You oppose them. They are already committed to violence according to their own self-realized agenda. Their agenda has nothing to do with, and will never have anything to do with, anything the West ever did or is doing.
You oppose them on principle, and you oppose them in the name of helping the moderates in their homelands retain control of their homelands. You don't try to appease them. Because you can't ever appease them. You have to understand what kind of a**holes you are really dealing with here. Currently, you do not. You believe this arrogant lie that these monsters are created by the West, somehow, by magic, even as these monsters cite their own ideological beliefs in their inspiration, and even as they have an agenda which has nothing to do with the West, and has to do with transforming their own societies into medieval hellholes.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In a reactor, uranium is kept critical. That means it experiences a chain reaction by which neutrons released at high speeds from radioactive decay strike other atoms, causing them to decay and release more neutrons.
In a bomb, uranium is made super-critical. Highly enriched uranium is compressed uniformly by conventional explosives. Metal doesn't compress well, but 4 tons of C4 in an inward-facing spherical shape charge is hard to argue with. The slightest decrease in total volume (increase in density--in this case a UNIFORM increase in density) pushes the uranium (or plutonium) beyond the critical point. Rather than simply chaining, it chains FAST: The outer surface of radioactive material compresses and begins efficiently capturing neutrons. This causes the atoms to break and release neutrons, many of which are directed in ward toward more compressed uranium, which quickly vaporizes in the same way. This creates more and more force due to creating an inward-expanding shell of nuclear explosion event horizon, compressing the metal and blasting it with a large load of released neutrons. In a fraction of a millisecond, the entire mass vaporizes by fission, which is significantly different from any other form of vaporization (for example, being heated until it boils off into metallic gas).
This doesn't happen just 'cause you pulled out the control rods. Trust me. A quick, efficient way to breed good, high-quality fissile material is a good thing; it won't blow up in your reactor. It might be a lot better quality than you really need, but we can always tone things down and just make better-than-good-enough refined nuclear material. If you can get to X, you can get to some point somewhat before X.
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