Question by d s: How different is the process to make nuclear fuel for power plants vs. weapons grade nuclear material?
Does having a nuclear power plant automatically mean you have a nuclear weapon capability? If not why, and what must happen before said material becomes ‘weapons grade’?
I’d like to see literature on the subject to if possible. Thanks!
Best answer:
Answer by OldPilot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium
A reactor can be designed as a Breeder Reactor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
A Breeder is what you want if yo want to build bombs. It turns out material that can farther be enriched to make “Weapons Grade” usually Plutonium. ===> You start with a little and get back a lot.
The easy “low tech” way is cascading gas centrifuges that takes vaporized material and spins it very fast. Most of the heavy atoms go to the outside, lighter atoms to the inside. You pull-off the fraction of gas (U235 or Plutonium) that you want and send it to the next centrifuge to be spun again. Each step you get more and more of what you want (U235 or Plutonium)
http://www.exportcontrols.org/cascades.html
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