Nice allies - Russia
They are a sovereign nation and we have no say in whom they can sell to but still, there should be some bounds of decency when it comes to totalitarian regimes.
From
Reuters:
Russia says Iran reactor on track for August launch
A reactor being built by Russia at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant is scheduled to open in August, the head of Russia's state nuclear corporation said on Wednesday.
"The launch is scheduled for August. We're on schedule," Sergei Kiriyenko told reporters in Argentina during a visit. "Bushehr doesn't threaten the regime of nonproliferation in any way. No one has any concerns about Bushehr."
We will see how often they change their fuel rods... If they leave them in for three or four years, they get all of the energy out of them but the rods are contaminated with the Plutonium 240 isotope.
If they change them after a few months, the Pu-240 is minimal and the yield of Pu-239 is much higher. If you are building a weapon, 239 is what you want as 240 pops off at the drop of a hat -- the weapon disintegrates before any significant power is developed.
It is a royal bitch to separate the two and why Carter thought the used rods would be dangerous is beyond me. President Jimmy Carter is the bozo who is responsible for banning the reprocessing of nuke waste -- we could be getting more fuel, burning up the long-lived isotopes and minimizing the storage requirements but no...
Posted by DaveH at April 14, 2010 9:39 PM