>
> They are separative work units and give a dimensionless number
> that represents a measure of work efficiency. This is a useful
> figure for measuring the relative energy costs of producing fuel
> grade, since the higher the SWU's per volume, the more costly
> the output is to produce.
I think you're interpreting SWUs (more exactly, SWU-kgs) incorrectly. SWUs are a measure of a certain amount of isotope separation, not the amount of input energy required for that given amount of separation by whatever process one uses to achieve that separation. For example, here:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/u-centrifuge.htm
you read
> The specific energy consumption is 2300-3000 kWh/SWU for
> Gaseous Diffusion, versus 100-300 kWh/SWU for gas centrifuge...
There's lots of sloppy terminology when you read about SWUs; as you note they are dimensionless, but the "SWUs" in the quote above, for example, are _not_ dimensionless; they actually mean "SWU-kgs." As I sniffed around the 'nets, I also saw talk of SWU-tons.
The reason I went snooping after these figures was to quiet down the yowl my internal numerical bullshit detector emitted the instant that "sixteen days" business passed before it. It hadn't gone off so loud as that since 1980 when I first heard Reagan's budget proposals. At first I didn't have any exact figures, but if Iran could bang out a bomb core in sixteen days flat using a first-generation experimental lab setup employing second-hand Pakistani technology, it would follow that by now Pakistan itself should possess about a _zillion_ bomb cores (plus or minus an order of magnitude or so).
Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net