Quote:
Originally Posted by sunnyside
Articles on N Koreas nuclear program don't mention new facilities for plutonium refienment.
Is there any reason to believe the material from the rods couldn't be fed into existing Uranium enrichment equipment? Except that it would be much more efficient due to the now larger mass difference of the products?
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I'm not sure. I've never really thought about that. The first thing that comes to mind is that Uranium Hexaflouride, which is the gaseous version of Uranium that they used at Oak Ridge is incredibly corrosive and chemically reactive, gnarly stuff. Hence the facility built to deal with it took into account the specific chemical qualities of Uhex. Plutonium might have different chemically reactive qualities and could be incompatible with U separation equipment. The bottom line is always the quality of the fissile material. Every atom that isn't the correct element or isotope poisons the reaction by capturing neutrons, so although I don't know, I doubt that it could be done cleanly enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunnyside
As for the time, what I understood is what you said. You spoil your Pu if you leave it in the reactor too long. So it would be a matter of yanking a number of rods rods when they are ready. My 10 number comes from being able to make 30 bombs from rods that take 4 months. So if you started all the rods at once and pulled them you should get 10 bombs. Of course the actually number should be less than this. But even 3 bombs might be "enough". One to test, two to threaten.
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Yep. I follow your math. Still, the questions remain. Here is what counts in that formula. If Iran chose to keep the fuel rods, they could potentially make some weapons. However, the weapons have a shelf-life because the cores of the weapons go through nuclear decay-- the poisoning we have been talking about. Theoretically, Russia would not provide Iran with fuel rods if Iran was not returning the spent ones, so they would lose their supply, and their weapons would be rendered useless in terms of actual nuclear capability. Not ideal, but also unavoidable. The more we talk about it, the more it seems like the issue is raw material. I don't think Iran has good access to it at the moment. Either way, it's not a good thing to have weapons "you feel like you need to use before they spoil." Clearly that is bad. Doesn't get them around the isolation/refinement of fissile materials problem either.
04-11-2008, 09:34 AM
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