Basic HTML Version
THE NEWTERROR:
Spreadof
NuclearWeapons
by
Jeff Calkins
T
HE EVIDENCE,
now
Since any given quan-
revealed, is how
tity of natural uranium is
casy any govern-
99 per cent uranium-238
ment today could produce
and only .7 per cent ura-
nuclear weapons.
nium-235, you need an
"enrichment plant" to
Terrifying Facts
make commercial-grade
Almost any nation will
uranium. But you don't
soon be able to build a
have to stop at 3 per cent
hydrogen bomb at will!
uranium-235.
If
you can
lf you were a scientist
enrich to 3 per cent urani-
assigned by your govern-
um-235, you can enrich
ment to develop a hydro-
to 90 per cent uranium-
gcn bomb, you'd find the
235-the grade necessary
task shockingly easy.
i
for bomb making.
To make a hydrogen
~
The point is, if you can
bomb, essentially all you
1...------ - - --------- --------' ::)
enrich uranium, you can
need are four atom bombs and about
" Little Boy"-the "crude " atomic
make a bomb.
100 pounds of lithium deuteride.
bomb that exploded over Hiroshima.
Uptonow,onlyeightcountrieshave
Lithium deuteride is relatively avai l-
Few realize how shockingly easy it is
had the ability to enrich uranium. But
able to anyone.
now tor almost any country on earth to
over the past few years a new simpler,
If you can simultaneously direct
obtain such weapons 01 mass
cheaper process for enriching urani -
destruction.
the explosion of tbe fou r atom
um has been invented.
1t
is called tbe
bombs, you will release the energy in
One U.S. State Department offi-
"gascentrifuge method."This process
the lithium deuteride in a fusion
cial, for example, has estimated that if
is now threatening to spread through-
explosion. The result is thousa nds of
a nation had the necessary plutonium
out the world.
times more powerful than thc bomb
or uranium, it would only take about
But the opportunities for atomic
that destroyed Hiroshima.
200 people-mostly engineers and
mischief do not stop with enriching
The critica! stage, then, is acquir-
machinists-and a small factory.
uranium.
ing the four atom bombs.
Commercial-grade uranium even-
The Ro le of Nuclear
The essential ingredient for an
tually is "spent" or "burned"- no
atomic bomb is about seven pounds of
Power Plants
longer usable for making nuclear
plutonium-239 or about 10 pounds of
The operation of nuclear power
energy. But it can be recycled and
uranium-235. Either will do. The othcr
plants creates opportunity to acquire
used again if it is reprocessed. A
physical materials needed to make an
bomb material. Such power plants
by-product of reprocessing is plutoni-
atomic bomb are relatively easy to
must use commercial-grade uranium
um-239.
acqui re. The actual assembling ofsuch
for fuel. Commercial-grade uranium
Thus, you do not need to be able to
a bomb, while extremely dangerous to
consists of 97 per cent uranium-238
enrich uranium. lf you bave a repro-
the assembler, is not beyond the ability
(whicb can't be used to make a
cessing plant, you can easily make
ofanyonewith theresourcesofa whole
bomb) and 3 per cent uranium-235
enough plutonium-239 to build a
nation behind him.
(whicb can).
bomb.
12
The
PLAIN TRUTH