On 4/17/06, Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Chuck Grimes:
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> ==============================
>
>
> 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
>
> http://monroelab.net/blog/
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>
-- Jim Devine / "Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles