ISRAEL21c staff
"It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man," Albert Einstein once said. Einstein's rueful sentiment may, in fact, be proven true by engineers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev who have developed a denaturing technique that could help combat the evils of nuclear proliferation.
The method denatures the plutonium created in large nuclear reactors by adding Americium (Am 241), a form of the basic synthetic element found in commercial smoke detectors and industrial gauges. Once denatured, the plutonium is unsuitable for use in armaments.
An article on the technique and findings will appear next month in the international journal Science and Global Security, for peer-reviewed scientific and technical studies relating to arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation policy.
Currently, five major countries produce large nuclear reactors: the US, Russia, Germany, France and Japan. The article suggests that if these countries all agreed to add the denaturing additive into all plutonium, it would prevent nuclear fuel being used for weapons.
Peaceful purposes, not warfare
"When you purchase a nuclear reactor from one of the five countries, it also provides the nuclear fuel for the reactor," explains Prof. Yigal Ronen, of BGU?s Department of Nuclear Engineering, who headed the project. "Thus, if the five agree to insert the additive into fuel for countries now developing nuclear power -- such as Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Qatar, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Yemen -- they will have to use it for peaceful purposes rather than warfare."
Nuclear fuel used in nuclear reactors has two isotopes of uranium. One is fissionable, while the other is not. The unfissionable component undergoes a number of nuclear reactions, turning some of it into plutonium. The plutonium also includes fissionable and unfissionable components. The amount of fissionable components created in nuclear reactors is enough to be used as nuclear weapons.
"Countries that purchase nuclear reactors usually give the spent fuel back to the producer," explains Ronen. "They wouldn't be able to get new plutonium for weapons if it is denatured, but countries that make nuclear fuel could decide not to denature it for themselves."
Ronen originally worked on Neptonium 237 for the purpose of denaturing plutonium, but switched to Americium, which is meant for pressurized water reactors (PWRs), such as the one being built in Iran.
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Posted: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 4:30 PM PT
Americans remain in broad agreement that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, with 78% taking that stand in the latest IBD/TIPP Poll vs. 77% the last time we posed the question in September 2006. However, unlike in '06, 52% now believe the U.S. should take military action to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons if diplomacy and economic sanctions fail. Two and a half years ago, when we asked if military action should be taken to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment activities, only 39% said yes. An even larger percentage are comfortable with Israel taking such action.
do you think the "leaders" of the kadima and labor have their focus on this threat,as it sure seems the coalition negotiations are political manipulation as usual?
Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, head of Israeli military intelligence AMAN, confirmed at the weekly government session in Jerusalem Sunday, March 8, that Iran had crossed the technological threshold to a nuclear bomb capability and required only a strategic decision to go into production.
Tehran TV disclosed Sunday that Iran had test fired a new long-range missile, without offering details.
The Israeli intelligence chief said Iran continues to accumulate hundreds of kilos of low-grade enriched uranium. Tehran expects to gain time from diplomacy with the West for consummating its military nuclear program, he said.
Yadlin's evaluation matched that of Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, who said last week: "Iran likely has enough nuclear fuel stockpiled to make a bomb."
The Israeli general reported that Middle East moderates are cynical about the talks President Barack Obama is promoting with Tehran. They fear the dialogue will come at their expense while Iran and Syria would capitalize on the time gained to further boost and arm terrorist and radical groups.
Yadlin warned that the Palestinian unity talks resuming in Cairo Tuesday, March 10, were a vehicle for Hamas to break out of international isolation.
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Washington experts: Iran has fissile material for 50 nuclear bombs
DEBKAfile Special Report
March 8, 2009, 6:10 PM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile's Washington sources quote experts familiar with the Iranian program maintain that it is far more advanced than the US and Israeli governments are willing to admit.
On March 4, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a paper with two important disclosures:
1. Iran has enough fissile material available for making up to 50 nuclear bombs. One of the paper's authors, William Schneider, undersecretary of state in the Reagan administration, who has made a study of Iran and its nuclear strategy, estimates that Tehran can go from low enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium in a relative brief period of time, perhaps a year or so.
Israel's current leaders, while evading action to curb a nuclear-armed Iran, now go about saying that the Jewish state can live in its shadow. They discount the crude threats coming from Iran and argue that Israel is not really the Islamic Republic primary objective; its true goal is subjugation of the Sunni Muslim world.
Another part of this argument is that Tehran will not go into production of single bombs but wait until it can produce batches of 10-15 bombs or nuclear warheads.
This proposition is knocked over by the Washington think tank's report and the briefing delivered to the Israeli cabinet by Israel's intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, Sunday, March 8.
Both confirm that Iran is no more than months away from being able to start a nuclear stockpile.
2. Schneider estimates that Israel will face the moment of no-return on action against a nuclear-armed Iran when Russia begins delivering sophisticated S-300 missile interceptors to Tehran. Not if but when, he says, although Israeli officials suggest the Russian-Iran deal has not been finalized.
The US experts' presumption is that these interceptors once installed will make it almost impossible for the US or Israel to attack Iran's nuclear sites.
The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition
Analysis: Iran faces shift in strategy from moderate Arabs
Mar. 10, 2009
brenda gazzar , THE JERUSALEM POST
Iran was stung after Morocco decided on Friday to sever its relations with the Islamic Republic, leaving the country even more isolated as it prepared to enter into talks with the Obama administration.
Morocco had accused Iran of "intolerable interference" and trying to spread Shi'ite Islam in the Sunni Arab country.
The decision by the North African country was also seen as further proof that an increasing number of moderate Arab states were ready to pursue a more confrontational policy toward Iran.
"It is a shift in the strategy of moderate Arab states vis-a-vis Iran," said Gamal Abdel Gawad, the head of the international relations unit at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
Gawad said that in seeking to avoid confrontation, moderate Arab states believe they had given Iran the opportunity to increase it's influence in the Middle East. "They [the Arab states] decided to fight back," he said.
Last week, Saudi Arabia's top diplomat, Prince Saud al-Faisal, called for a unified vision in dealing with the "Iranian challenge," specifically concerning security in the Persian Gulf, as well as Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities.
The new Arab strategy intends to limit Iranian influence in the broader Middle East - which is considered a bargaining chip by Teheran - and thus will likely have some sort of impact on the country's future negotiations with Washington.
If you deny Iran some of these bargaining chips, Gawad said, it could put the country in a weaker position for negotiations.
Such a course of action, however, is not considered likely to affect Iran's focus on its nuclear program, which it sees as a central component of its foreign policy.
On Sunday, Israel's top military intelligence officer, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, warned that Iran had "crossed the threshold" and had the expertise and materials required to produce nuclear weapons. The announcement came on the same day that Iran tested a precision air-to-surface missile with a 70-mile range , a weapon that would give it the ability to threaten US and other ships operating in the Persian Gulf.
Israeli experts on Iran are, however, somewhat divided on the best way to contain the Iranian threat at this critical juncture.
Menashe Amir, an Iranian affairs expert and chief editor of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Persian Web site, argues that the US should drop the idea of negotiations with Iran and instead pursue a policy of serious international sanctions against the country.
Alternatively, according to Amir, should the US decide to pursue negotiations with Iran, such proceedings should begin immediately in order to keep from giving Iran more time to achieve its nuclear aims.
Amir further stated that the Iranians were very experienced in drawing out negotiations in order to waste time, and said that the Americans had to move fast.
"As soon as they decide to make the bomb," he said, "it may take them six months to do so" although they would then have to resolve a number of technical problems to be able to actually use it.
Amir further noted that the current global situation allowed Teheran to continue the pursuit of its nuclear program.
The new Obama administration is still trying to determine how to deal with the Iranian issue and is waiting for the country's next presidential election, scheduled for June.
The Europeans are waiting to see the results of America's approach, as well as the outcome of Russian-American talks on Iran, which could take several months.
In addition, Israel still has to form a coalition government which will determine the country's course of action in relation to the Iranian threat.
"Meanwhile, the Iranians are going on with their program without any disturbance and that's a very dangerous situation," Amir said.
But Meir Javedanfar, another Iranian affairs expert and co-author of the Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran, feels that Obama should try to negotiate with the Iranians and show the international community that Iran is not that interested in stopping its nuclear program.
"I think by that time, he'll have more leverage to impose tougher sanctions," he said.
America, Javedanfar argues, should try diplomacy for now, increase intelligence cooperation and adopt a comprehensive, ambitious public diplomacy campaign against Iran's nuclear program that does not rely on military threats.
He added that the US could utilize an approach that strongly highlights the benefits of cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency and ending Iran's isolation.
"Threats against Iran only help the hardliners there; we should be weakening them, not strengthening them," he said.
Javedanfar and Amir both agree a "military option" should only be used as a last resort since Israel would be vulnerable to any type of Iranian response.
Javedanfar also warned that the military option was worth shelving if it did not set back Iran's nuclear program by at least 10 or 15 years.
"If Israel bombs Iran's nuclear facilities and Iran manages to make a bomb within the next 10 years, the level of threat from Iran will be two- to three-fold... in the way they will threaten Israel and the amount of support they will provide to militant groups," he said.
AP contributed to this report.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1236603392383&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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