Some proponents of nuclear fusion power falsely claim that it would pose no risk of contributing to weapons proliferation. In fact, there are several risks including the use of tritium as a fusion power fuel which raises the risk of its diversion for use in boosted nuclear weapons, or, more importantly, the use of fusion reactors to irradiate uranium to produce plutonium or to irradiate thorium-232 to produce uranium-233.
Fusion power has yet to generate a single Watt of useful electricity but it has already contributed to proliferation problems. According to Khidhir Hamza, a senior nuclear scientist involved in Iraq's weapons program in the 1980s: "Iraq took full advantage of the IAEA's recommendation in the mid 1980s to start a plasma physics program for "peaceful" fusion research. We thought that buying a plasma focus device ... would provide an excellent cover for buying and learning about fast electronics technology, which could be used to trigger atomic bombs."
All existing and proposed nuclear power concepts pose WMD proliferation risks. History gives us some indication of the scale of the problem. Over 20 countries have used their 'peaceful' nuclear facilities for some level of weapons research and five countries developed nuclear weapons under cover of a civil program.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Proliferation has to step back for clean energy, that is just my opinion of course.
If focus fusion got to work for clean energy, one would have to take the risk. The chances are not very high anyway that anyone would build a nuke that way. Maybe Iran is crazy enough, but pretty much everyone else is to affraid of getting nuked by the US before even having enough material for a single bomb... Note: a single nuclear bomb does not automatically a nuclear weapons arsenal.
All that is just my opinion though.
There is no risk free technology. Each comes with its problems.
Most of this stuff has been discussed here before. I just thought it interesting that DPF experiments were classed as a proliferation risk. And because of the technology involved not the production of neutrons.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Both the IFR and Thorium MSR can be used to make weapons grade materials. However, it is rather difficult to make such materials with either reactor with good secrecy. Making weapons grade material from an IFR involves the production of the same radioactive ick as from a conventional breeder reactor. This is not easily concealed. Also, the jump from power grade materials to weapons grade material is quite large. 4% fissile material to 96% fissile material. Nonetheless, both of these concepts are superior to existing plants for power generation and do make proliferation more difficult (but not impossible) than existing fission technology. The Thorium reactor is more resistant to proliferation than the IFR (and uses less material to boot).
The proliferation risk of nuclear fusion is a red herring. Any kind of nuclear bomb requires a fission trigger which, in turn, requires all of the nuclear fission materials manufacturing infrastructure. If polywell or any of the other fusion schemes work out, we can sell them to all of the "dodgy" countries of the world contingent upon them dismantling their fission power infrastructure.
Also, consider the source of this bulletin. Amory Lovins and others are luddites who are opposed to any kind of concentrated energy sources.
Asians don't give a s**t about Western luddites like Lovins and Rifkin. The only thing the Western luddites can do is to ensure the superiority of East Asia over the West.
This is what I love about globalization. It creates a competitive arena that favors those who are most into technological innovation and economic growth. Since technological innovation and economic growth are inherently positive-sum, everyone ends up winning in the end.
Um, justifying some really fancy 'controlled fusion' tech by claiming it would help learn to set off a fission bomb's explosive charges strikes me as 'tight-rope walking'...
Certainly lets them play with real-neat toys and Ooh-Shiny stuff, gives them some lovely buzz-words to put in their annual reports, is seriously safer than uranium, fluorine and/or centrifuges, may give Mossad the giggles, probably means the IDF will not drop in, and certainly offers some prospect of gainful post-regime employment rather than noose or firing squad...
Provided they can keep it going, sounds like a win/win/win scenario...
And, d'uh, imagine the kudos if they build themselves a Polywell ??
Nik wrote:Um, justifying some really fancy 'controlled fusion' tech by claiming it would help learn to set off a fission bomb's explosive charges strikes me as 'tight-rope walking'...
Certainly lets them play with real-neat toys and Ooh-Shiny stuff, gives them some lovely buzz-words to put in their annual reports, is seriously safer than uranium, fluorine and/or centrifuges, may give Mossad the giggles, probably means the IDF will not drop in, and certainly offers some prospect of gainful post-regime employment rather than noose or firing squad...
Provided they can keep it going, sounds like a win/win/win scenario...
And, d'uh, imagine the kudos if they build themselves a Polywell ??
/sarcasm.
Creating a technological infrastructure is not technical 'tight-rope walking'.
It is a precursor to doing something. It all depends on intent. And only the Shadow Knows...
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Focus Fusion really sucks when it comes to setting off a fusion device, as it is designed specifically to be almost neutron-free (a few slow neutrons from side-reactions). As for the technology, it is pretty much irrelevant to getting big bangs from deuterium, etc.
Just IMHO.
Help Keep the Planet Green! Maximize your CO2 and CH4 Output! Global Warming = More Life. Global Cooling = More Death.
TallDave wrote:If Lerner does a seminar in Tehran, I'm going to worry...
If Europe increases their dependence on Natural Gas, I'm going to worry.
The world wide push toward "renewables" with their guaranteed increased dependence on natural gas, is more proliferating than any Nuclear power systems so long as the Nuclear power systems are without PUREX and non-chemical (physical) refinement processes.
World wide dependence on Natural Gas for electrical energy production will be extremely proliferating with respect to Nuclear Weapons. Guaranteed.
The playstation 2 is a proliferation hazzard; it is orders of magnitude faster than the computers used to successfully develop thermonuclear weapons in the early 50's.
Other proliferation hazzards include integral calculus, high efficiency single crystal solar cells(now you're a good way on your way towards making integrated circuits and as mentioned above, even crude computers are a proliferation hazzard), the existance of nation states, belligerent and unpredictable foreign policy(if only politicians could be phased out... please?), dependence on scarce resources like oil and gas and letting them control foreign policy, space programmes(deterrence not credible without a delivery mechanism), mining technology(fissionable or fissile material must be mined), tunable lasers(could be used for MLIS, AVLIS), maraging steel and electric motors(someone might get the idea of using them in a centrifuge), electromagnets and vacuum vessels(much of the U-235 in the little boy weapon was from a heavy duty mass-spectrometer that did uranium enrichment. It was known as a calutron).
Hell why not go all the way back to farming? It is the lynchpin of proliferation. Without farming the population density drops way down and people disband from nation states into constantly warring tribes; the predictable and steady surpluses that enable other persuits than hand-to-mouth living disappear(including the proliferant technologies listed above). The conditions that allow preservation and perpetuation of knowledge disappear.