Most of this rainy weekend I read up on uranium enrichment for reactors and uranium enrichment for weapons. It has fascinated me and I hope the list enjoyed some these posts. However, it seems completely clear to me that the required uranium enrichment process is so sophisticated and complex that it is almost useless for weapons. Plutonium is much less difficult to produce and yeilds twice the kick.
The proof of this conclusion is that during the Manhatten Project the US abandoned the enriched uranium track for weapons development after the very first bomb and switched to plutonium based fission. Oppenheimer's solution of using the multiple methods of enrichment in a series betrays a certain panic that they were not going to succeed. They just barely managed to get Fat Boy completed. They didn't have enough enriched uranium to make another bomb. For test purposes, they used the plutonium fission method
When the US developed the hydrogen bomb they used plutonium with secondary applications for non-enriched U-238 metal as a container shield and they may have used some enriched U-235 for an internal and tertiary `spark plug' fission reaction to boost the fusion output. Although even as a internal spark plug, plutonium fission seems like a better choice.
In other words the primary and just about only use for developing an uranium enrichment industry is civilian nuclear reactors, period.
On the other hand, except for MOX or recycled plutonium combined with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium and depleted uranium compounds used for some reactor fuels, just about the only use for plutonium is nuclear weapons.
MOX (UO2+PuO2) stands for mixed oxides and such fuels account for about 2% of fuel used in nuclear reactors around the world. Using MOX as a reactor fuel is a way to dispose of surplus weapons grade plutonium. France and Canada are the principle users for this recycled fuel, which makes a lot of sense since France invested a huge amount in the de Gaulle era on developing domestic production of enriched uranium industry and a grid of reactor plants to supply their electricity. Since that was forty years ago a lot of depleted uranium fuel has accumulated and can be recycled with the addition of Pu-239. With 7% Pu-239 (at 90% purity) added to depleted uranium, the MOX product is equivalent to 4.5% U-235.
While I am aware that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, it has sure been worth it. All this crap about Iran's nuclear weapons potential is just that, complete crap.
Even if Iran achieved Israel's benchmark of a 1000 centrifuge cascade (look up pictures of Portsmouth, Ohio centrifuge facility with a 35 serial cascade and try to imagine the Iranians hiding something like that), Israel would be in no worse shape than it is today because there is no nuclear weapons threat from enriched uranium. The threat comes from plutonium.
As for Iran's possible plutonium production, here is our trusted UN ambassador John Bolton back when he was merely under secretary for arms control and international security speaking at the Hudson Institute (8/04):
``Iran has also developed a program for the production of plutonium, an alternate path to nuclear weapons. Covert construction of a large, heavy water production plant was also disclosed by an Iranian opposition group. Its purpose is to supply heavy water for a research reactor that Iran plans to begin constructing this year...''
(http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/35281.htm)
Note the time line, `plans to begin constructing this year...'' note the source, `opposition group'. Hell I am planning begin to construct something this year, and I am certain my opposition is against it. It could be making heavy water or it could Fermi's graphite legos. Or I could begin to plan to buy the shit from the Russians. Who knows. It's the beginning of a plan to make something I could use later for nefarious purposes.. We'll see.
See that's the great thing about beginning to plan. Everybody begins to plan.
So if the Iranians were beginning to plan to construct a plant to make heavy water for a heavy water reactor that could be used for plutonium production, have they got past the great barrier of beginning and have actually started to plan to make heavy water...?
I guess we'll find out after we nuke'm.
CG