Israel: Iran Nuke Plant 'Totally Unacceptable'

[Zachstar]

The Sun rises and sets...

[Onkel Neal]

Haha, I saw a news item on Slate.com and without my glasses, this:

Iran Starts Fueling Nuclear Reactor

at first glance it looked a lot like the e in "Fueling" was a c, and the l was a k...
Iran Starts Fu**ing Nuclear Reactor

and I thought for a moment, hey, the media finally got it right

[XabbaRus]

A nuclear power plant for power and one for making a bomb are too different things. The Bushehr plant is a low grade reactor, and besides the Russians are providing and removing the fuel.

The thing has been on the go for 30 odd year. I think Israel is just thumping its drum on this.

Now I'm not saying Iran doesn't want nukes and that it isn't trying to make them but Bushehr has nothing to do with this.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Haha, I saw a news item on Slate.com and without my glasses, this:

Iran Starts Fueling Nuclear Reactor

at first glance it looked a lot like the e in "Fueling" was a c, and the l was a k...
Iran Starts Fu**ing Nuclear Reactor

and I thought for a moment, hey, the media finally got it right

[XabbaRus]

My point was that the Bushehr reactor isn't capable of enriching or producing enriched uranium or plutonium, so I don't get the big deal of it going nuclear.

[Jimbuna]

I really don't see Israel or anyone else for that matter doing anything militarily until there is overpowering evidence to show that the enrichment process has started.

Even then a lot will depend on how major players such as Russia and China are feeling at the time.

Nobody is going to risk a possible escalation to a nuclear exchange over Iran.

Now if the major players can agree on a way forward, acceptable to them all.....all options would be on the table.

[Gerald]

is that there is always a potential security risk to gain control over their need of access to material,and it has nothing to do with the construction of power plants, although there are suspicions that the country an interest that there should be weapons-related, they have more plants not only this..

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

My point was that the Bushehr reactor isn't capable of enriching or producing enriched uranium or plutonium, so I don't get the big deal of it going nuclear.

Technically the Bushehr reactor can produce Plutonium. Pretty much every fission reactor produces PU as a byproduct. The issue is what can the Iranian's do with the PU that will be produced at Bushehrr?

Not much. Even if they were allowed to keep the irradiated fuel rods (which is not part of the agreement) the Iranians do not have a Uranium reprocessing capability (e.g. PUREX) nor do they have a reprocessing facility (which are very hard to hide). Additionally, the Bushehr reactor will be monitored so that the burn-times of the rods will be known, which helps determine the isotope of PU being produced.

So this means

a. The Iranians will not be keeping the irradiated fuel rods with PU byproduct.

b. The Iranians will not be able to cook the rods to minimize the production of 240PU without everyone in the world knowing about it.

c. If they were able to keep them, they do not have the capability of extracting the PU.

And we have not even touched on whether Iran has the capability of constructing an implosion device. If you ask the North Koreans, they can tell you that it ain't easy.

There is a lot to worry about concerning Iran. This reactor is not one of them.

[TLAM Strike]

But they could build a bomb with just the U-235 like Fat Man (The Hiroshima Bomb) and Thin Man type devices.

This reactor doesn't matter either way.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

But they could build a bomb with just the U-235 like Fat Man (The Hiroshima Bomb) and Thin Man type devices.

This reactor doesn't matter either way.

you are absolutely correct. If they want to build a 235U device, they won't need a reactor at all, but their Uranium Enrichment facilities.

Only if they want to build a 239PU device will they need irradiated fuel rods, but then they also need a PUREX type facility.

A "thin man" device won't work. The Thin Man was a Plutonium gun type device. There are many obstacles to making a gun-type PU device (the speed of the gun needs to be about 10X faster than for a U gun-type device, for example), but in any case, for all practical purposes, if a nation is going to use PU for their devices, they will need to go with the much much more complicated and complex implosion design.