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.
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Precisely.
Surely one of the reasons it has been so simple - via the magic of scaremongering wordplay - for Washington to turn an Iranian nuclear FUEL program into a 'code red!' weapons program is the fact so few people have even the sketchiest idea how reactors are powered and fission bombs get made.
In this state of deliberate dis and mis-information Iranian statements they've achieved a modest level of uranium enrichment are thrown into the alarmist pot, stirred about and hotly served up as further evidence of perfidious intentions. After all, it's all "nuclear" and, therefore, all contributions to the vaporous Tehran bomb we're encouraged to believe is only a heartbeat away and about which, all 'decent' people agree, "something must be done."
I've been following nuclear technology as an interested amateur since around age 12 (which made me the kind of kid who simultaneously delighted and bored his family at Thanksgiving dinner with micro lectures on my latest readings about uranium hexafluoride or UF6) and could see directly through Washington's hyperventilating declarations and impending atomic doom.
But, I failed to provide the level of useful background you've given us here Chuck so thank you for taking the time to do that.
.d.
--------- "If human beings had more of a sene of humor, things might have turned out differently."
Stanislav Lem