Antinuclear

Australian Silex laser technology brings danger of nuclear weapons proliferation

DAVID BRADBURY: I went to the children’s hospital in Basra, I went to the General Hospital in Fallujah where there was a baby being born with a twisted cleft palette, spin bifida, with organs that were displaced in its body and the likelihood of autism according to the English-speaking doctor who’s been through this nightmare for the last 10 or 15 years. They can’t cope with it.

Even advocates of nuclear energy like Paul Barratt are concerned about the increasing use of depleted uranium munitions.

PAUL BARRATT: It is a toxic metal. It’ll be there in the environment, kids playing in the dust, people growing vegies, who knows. There is controversy about the extent of the health effects, but there seems to be good reason to believe there are long-term genetic effects, birth defects and what have you.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3816411.htm Australian Broadcasting Corporation  Nuclear enrichment revolution meets weapon fears Broadcast: 01/08/2013 Reporter: Greg Hoy  An Australian nuclear physicist has developed a new enrichment process and been granted approval by US regulators to develop it commercially, despite fears it could promote the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Transcript……………..

TV REPORTER: Earlier this week the GE Hitachi facility in Castlemaine received federal approval to enrich uranium using laser technology, but what exactly does that mean and what are the implications to our community?

GREG HOY: The global implications are profound according to the American physicists’ society and non-proliferation groups who fear the Silex technology will promote the spread of nuclear weapons.

JAMES ACTON, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: This decision by the NRC really was a historic one. This was a decision taken without serious regard to proliferation consequences. It can take place in very small facilities and if the technology spreads then potential proliferators could use laser enrichment technology secretly to try and build nuclear weapons.

GREG HOY: A second plant has already been proposed. In Paducah, Kentucky, sits the largest nuclear enrichment facility in America, covering 800 acres. General electric Hitachi and the US department of energy are now suggesting it be converted to the Silex laser technology. This would shrink Paducah to one quarter of its size. It’s the shrinkage that worries American physicist like James Acton, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

JAMES ACTON: The electricity usage of a laser enrichment plant would be much, much less than one quarter of Paducah’s, so this is an illustration of the way how similar activities by other states would be extremely hard to detect…………..

August 1, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war