Kerry's Statement About Providing Iran Nuclear Fuel

[adios]

Upon further review it sure looks to me that Kerry's advocating providing Iran nuclear fuel.

LEHRER: Senator Kerry, 90 seconds.

KERRY: With respect to Iran, the British, French, and Germans were the ones who initiated an effort without the United States, regrettably, to begin to try to move to curb the nuclear possibilities in Iran. I believe we could have done better.

I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together. The president did nothing.

With respect to North Korea, the real story: We had inspectors and television cameras in the nuclear reactor in North Korea. Secretary Bill Perry negotiated that under President Clinton. And we knew where the fuel rods were. And we knew the limits on their nuclear power.

Colin Powell, our secretary of state, announced one day that we were going to continue the dialog of working with the North Koreans. The president reversed it publicly while the president of South Korea was here.


Can any of the ABB crowd attempt to spin this one away? I thought last night he was stating that Iran should provide fuel for the U.S. to test but that's clearly not what Kerry stated. And Kerry is gung ho on stopping proliferation by tightly controlling the whereabouts of nuclear fuel? Sorry but providing nuclear fuel to an extremist government sponsoring terrorism isn't how I'd go about controlling the spread of nuclear fuel and promoting nuclear capabilities. This position from Kerry is absolute insanity.

[BrettK]

Kerry's taking the same stance on Iran that Clinton took on North Korea. He thinks the best way to keep a country from developing nuclear weapons is to teach it about nuclear energy. Of course, it's not phrased this way, and Kerry's reason for adopting this line of thinking is nothing new. He hopes that such action will pacify the country for at least the term of his presidency, passing the problem on to the next president and keeping his approval rating up.

Brett

[MaxPower]

I am no expert on nuclear physics, but as I understand it:

We could provide them with enriched uranium that can be used for nuclear energy. This nuclear fuel would not be suitable for nuclear weapons.

Once they have the technology to enrich uranium, they can produce uranium that is enriched enough to produce nuclear weapons. By providing them with enriched uranium that can be used to produce nuclear energy, they would not have to develop this technology in order to use have a nuclear energy program.

The stuff he want to contain is the nuclear fuel from the former Soviet Union which really is suitable for nuclear weapons.

[nicky g]

There is an interesting take on the intersections between peaceful nuclear uses and the development of nuclear weapons here. The author is against all nuclear activity, whether for peaceful purposes or otherwise.

Proliferation treaty (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1308975,00.html)

[Nicholasp27]

he wants to give them the fish instead of teach them how to fish

the reason being...if he gives them the fish, then he specifies that they only get salmon

if he teaches them how to fish, or they learn how to fish from someone else, then they can get Bass

[wacki]

The whole plan won't work. Don't you see Iran has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world. It does NOT need nuclear power. It's way more expensive for Iran to develope this technology than to use it's own oil.

[nicky g]

Russia has nuclear power plants despite having massive oil and gas reserves; and it openly has nuclear weapons, so they clearly weren't built as a cover for developing those. Given the cost of developing nucelar power stations I would have thought it would be cheaper for even non-oil producers to import oil and fuel power stations with it than build nuclear power stations but that's just a guess.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
The whole plan won't work. Don't you see Iran has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world. It does NOT need nuclear power

[/ QUOTE ]

That's part of the point. If they don't accept your offer of the lesser stuff, then you can prove to others that the only other reason they are developing nuclear technology is for weapons. This makes the case to build a coalition much easier as it takes away a major arrow from their quiver.

[wacki]

I wonder what the IEAA thinks about this. Anyone know what they are recommending?

Russia with nukes is one thing, Iran is something completely different. As of right now, I would be more comfortable with North Korea having nukes than Iran. Maybe I misunderstand the situation, but Iran with anything nuclear doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Say we followed Kerry's plan and gave Iran low level uranium. They use it, and then what about the waste? Will one of the groups they fund get ahold of the stuff and make a dirty bomb? Just a thought.

[nicky g]

"Russia with nukes is one thing, Iran is something completely different. "

That wasn;t my pointm, it was that for whatever reason, other countries that could be more than self-sufficient in power from their own oil resurces have also chosed to develop nuclear power.

"Say we followed Kerry's plan and gave Iran low level uranium. They use it, and then what about the waste? Will one of the groups they fund get ahold of the stuff and make a dirty bomb? Just a thought. "

Unlikely. Iran funds Hizballah and, some say, Hamas. Both are engaged in localised conflcits. If either used them they would end up poisoning themsevles and thousands of the people on behalf of whom they are supposed be fighting.

By the way there is a fortchoming BBC2 documentary which says that dirty bombs aren't feasible; that CIA attempts to replicate one whowed that they destroyed what they are supposed to spread. I have no idea of the science. If I see it I'll post on what I thought.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]

By the way there is a fortchoming BBC2 documentary which says that dirty bombs aren't feasible; that CIA attempts to replicate one whowed that they destroyed what they are supposed to spread. I have no idea of the science. If I see it I'll post on what I thought.

[/ QUOTE ]

I so hope this is the case. Anthrax, unless weaponized developed by the US, Russians, or Japanese is mainly just a scare. I have a tough time believing that what they are trying to spread gets destroyed. Atoms simply don't vanish. The material will always be there. But I sure hope your right non the less. Keep us posted nicky g!

[theBruiser500]

There were a couple things I didn't get about this topic. As a commentator said on MSNBC after this was over, Iran has a lot of oil and other energy. Why do we need to give them nuclear fuel at all? Also, Bush had a good point about Clinton being the one that started the unilateral sanctions against Iran. Could anyone provide more details on this?

[JimBob2232]

I speak here as a nuclear engineer. Dirty bombs ARE feasible. However, the real problem with them is not the radiation they would give off, but the fear it would put in our society. The impact of a dirty bomb would be directly proportional to the strength of the source. The stronger the source, the more exposure an individual will recieve. The further you are away from a radiation source, the less radiation you will recieve. This decreases exponentially with distance. Unless the source is extemely strong (which is unlikely), you would need to be pretty close to the explosion to recieve any signifigant amount of radiation. The real concern is not so much with the radiation as it is with the explosive device itself. Though Ironically people are so concerned about radiation that the "terrorism" part of the dirty bomb will come primarily by the use of a radioactive source.
Another aspect of a dirty bomb is that, presumably once a bomb goes off people will run away. This results in less time being exposed to high radiation levels, and people will probably not recieve enough radiation to affect them.
People get so concerned with radiation, and its primarilly because they dont understand it. Get on an airplane, and you will recieve alot of radiation. Flight attendants recieve somewhere between 500-600 millirem a year on average. This is more than those of us who work in nuclear power plants for a living! This is because they work closer to the sun than we do, and therefore recieve more cosmic radiation. (remember radiation increases exponentially the closer you are to the source (sun)). Yet you dont see flight attendats walking around with 3 arms, and they seem to be normal people, with normal families.
There is a point where radiation exposure begins to affect you. But the government has operaional exposure limits to protect workers.

[ QUOTE ]
Atoms simply don't vanish.

[/ QUOTE ]
While you are close to correct (without getting into quantom physics here), anthrax is not an atom, but a molecule. without knowin the specifics on antrax, i am not sure how they go about doing it, but every molecule can be dissasociated into its respective parts, or some variation thereof where it does not harm you. Sometimes you can do it with heat. Sometimes with pressure, and sometimes with radiation. People worry about carbon monoxide. And they should. Carbon monoxide is simply a Carbon atom and an oxygen atom living together. Add another oxygen atom and whallah, carbon dioxide, which we all breathe every day. The point is, if you can get anthrax to take on an oxygen atom (for example only, i dont know what you would need to do), and make it okay for people to consume, you have just destroyed its viability as a terror weapon. To do that, all you have to do is create the environment for that to happen.

[tolbiny]

There are several (non weapon making) reasons for Iran to posses nuclear power plants.

1. Oil will run out- the Iranian govt could be looking forward to the future and not wanting to suddenly be in an energy crisis- one that would be much more damaging than the one in California.

but more likey
2. Even though it may be more expensive to use nuclear power, the opportunity cost of not being able to sell the oil they are using would make it more profitable to use nuclear power and continue to ship as much oil as possible to people paying nearly 50$ a barrell.

3. It would be a sign of progress and national pride to move into the nuclear age.

4. To be able to make nukes....Opps

[theBruiser500]

good post, please use paragraphs though

[wacki]

Maybe I was a little ambiguous in my post. When I meant atoms being destroyed, I was talking about dirty bombs. An atom of radioactive uranium can't be destroyed.


As for anthrax, it's not the molecule they use, it's the whole bacteria. I've actually worked with it before. The problem with anthrax is that it sticks together like glue. You have to turn it into aerosole dust to make it a weapon. If you can do that, then it is very lethal, but few countries can. In fact, Iraq has been unable to do it so far. As far as I know only Russia, Japan, the US, and a few other countries have weaponized anthrax.

I type fast, and don't always type what I mean. My hands and mind aren't always in sync... lol.

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
I type fast, and don't always type what I mean. My hands and mind aren't always in sync... lol.

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Are you typing one handed again? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[wacki]

only when I go here.

www.twistys.com (http://www.twistys.com)



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[sam h]

As far as I understand, ther is a type of nuclear fuel that is not weapons grade and cannot be changed to weapons grade. What Kerry was saying is that if Iran ostensibly wants nuclear power for energy purposes, we should have told them to build the power plants and we will supply the non-weapons grade fuel. This type of suggestion as a way to curb proliferation has been advanced many times before.

[wacki]

Maybe JimBob2232, can correct me, but I don't think that is true. Critical mass is critical mass. In short, you need is to purify the lighter isotopes from the fuel in a gas centrifuge. Which isn't easy.

[sam h]

I certainly don't know the science at all.

But I've heard a lot of people talk about this as an international option for stopping proliferation but allowing countries to take advantage of nuclear power. So I assume there must be some safeguard or something.

[JimBob2232]

Well, I will see what I can do. I work more with the maintenance and repair of reactors than with construction and enrichment of fuel.

Uranium in its natural state is primarily U238. U238 is fairly stable, and sustaining a chain reaction is very difficult. U235 is much more fissionable. U235 is found in trace amounts natrually.

So, when uranium is mined, approximatly 99% of it is U238, and 1% is the highly fissionable U235. This combination makes it essentially useless in its current state (and the reason you sometimes see people with a chunk of uranium sitting on thier desks).

The term "enrichment" refers to removing or transforming, the less reactive U238, so the end result is a chunk of uranium with a higher percentage of U235 than it occurs in nature. This enriched uranium is capable of sustaining a nuclear reaction.


Critical mass is critical mass, but you will need a whole lot more U238 to achieve critical mass than you would U235.

During the enrichment process a gas is used along with a centrifuge. What happens when the centrifuge spins, is that the heavier atoms (u235) migrate to the wall, thus increasing the concentration of the lighter molecules further from the wall.

Since fuel in nuclear reactors is less enriched than weapons grade fuel, it is feasible to take fuel earmarked for a power reactor and further enrich it into weapons grade fuel. It is probably alot more work at that point because of the structure and the way the fuel rods are constructed, but it could be done.