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The other part of your point is good. Who says that they are building bigger centrifuges? Are there no other reasons for building them?
Who says that they are building bigger centrifuges? Are there no other reasons for building them?
IAEA has released very little substantial materials besides their resolutions on this matter, but the press officer has released tentative hints. We'll have to wait on the IAEA report early March to see what's left of this. Note that the press isn't helpful on the issue as the focus is on enrichment only. Never mind that there's a difference between civilian and military use. Yet now everything that links to enrichment is Bad. Chalk that one up to bad press reporting.
According to the opinion of people working at ECN Petten, one of the two locations in the Netherlands with nuclear technology, bigger centrifuges are only meant for nuclear weapons.
Chalk that one up to bad press reporting.
Again?
My understanding of the process is that the difference between enriching uranium to a low level (for energy) and a high level (for weaponry) is simply a matter of scale -- if they are currently enriching uranium to a low level (which they claim that they are) the technology they already have can produce highly enriched uranium, it will just take a lot longer.
The attraction of bigger/more centrifuges is being able to get the uranium to that point faster.
Obviously, it is possible to build a centrifuge that makes it extremely hard to reach weapons grade, but as I understood it, one of those is so hobbled as to make fuel grade hard to reach too...
The physical principle is to use the centrifugal force to produce an "exponential atmosphere" in order to separate the lighter from the heavier isotopes in gas form. The process of enrichment proceeds by multiplicative increments.
I can write something more detailed if I must.
Larger centrifuges are able to produce higher gradients, so a higher degree of enrichment is possible at each step. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
In particular can you comment on Nomad's assertion that there are centrifuges which are useful for fuel creation which are not useful for weapons creation?
To a first approximation, the number of enrichment cycles it would take to reach a given level of enrichment increases as the log of the level of enrichment. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
Wikipedia has a brief article about Gas centrifuges. I could try to answer questions about that. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
How hard is it to work maraging steel anyway?
Remember I'm not an engineer. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
The key parameter is the centrifugal acceleration on the centrifuge's rim: this is proportional to the diameter of the centrifuge times the square of the rotation frequency... or the square of the speed at the rim divided by the diameter. In terms of structural stability, smaller is better. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
Le début de l'enrichissement a été constaté mardi par une équipe d'inspecteurs de l'AIEA, qui s'est rendue sur le site pilote de Natanz, au sud-est de Téhéran. "Notre équipe a vu que les Iraniens avaient commencé à introduire de l'hexafluorure d'uranium (un gaz) dans des centrifugeuses non reliées en cascade", affirme cette source. A team of IAEA inspectors, who went to the Natanz experimental site, noted Tuesday that enrichment had begun. "Our team saw that the Iranians had started to introduce uranium hexafluoride (a gas) into non-cascaded centrifuges", said this source. Le fait que cette manipulation concerne des centrifugeuses isolées, et non reliées en cascade, signifie que l'Iran n'a pas commencé à procéder à un enrichissement d'uranium à grande échelle - procédure indispensable à la production des composantes d'une arme nucléaire, et chose pour laquelle l'Iran aurait encore besoin de plusieurs années, selon des experts. <snip> The fact that this experiment concerns separate centrifuges, not linked in cascade, means that Iran has not started the process of large-scale uranium enrichment -- indispensable to production of nuclear weapon components, and a process which will take Iran several years, according to experts. Une délégation iranienne est attendue le 20 février à Moscou pour de nouvelles négociations sur la proposition formulée par le Kremlin de faire enrichir en Russie tout l'uranium dont Téhéran aurait besoin pour un programme nucléaire civil. Les Européens et les Américains soutiennent cette initiative russe, qui n'a cependant, à ce jour, recueilli que des réactions en demi-teinte côté iranien. An Iranian delegation is expected to be in Moscow on 20th February for fresh negociations on the Kremlin's offer to enrich all the uranium Tehran would need for a civil nuclear programme. The Europeans and the Americans support this Russian initiative, which has only received, up to now, half-hearted reactions from the Iranian side.
A team of IAEA inspectors, who went to the Natanz experimental site, noted Tuesday that enrichment had begun. "Our team saw that the Iranians had started to introduce uranium hexafluoride (a gas) into non-cascaded centrifuges", said this source.
Le fait que cette manipulation concerne des centrifugeuses isolées, et non reliées en cascade, signifie que l'Iran n'a pas commencé à procéder à un enrichissement d'uranium à grande échelle - procédure indispensable à la production des composantes d'une arme nucléaire, et chose pour laquelle l'Iran aurait encore besoin de plusieurs années, selon des experts. <snip>
The fact that this experiment concerns separate centrifuges, not linked in cascade, means that Iran has not started the process of large-scale uranium enrichment -- indispensable to production of nuclear weapon components, and a process which will take Iran several years, according to experts.
Une délégation iranienne est attendue le 20 février à Moscou pour de nouvelles négociations sur la proposition formulée par le Kremlin de faire enrichir en Russie tout l'uranium dont Téhéran aurait besoin pour un programme nucléaire civil. Les Européens et les Américains soutiennent cette initiative russe, qui n'a cependant, à ce jour, recueilli que des réactions en demi-teinte côté iranien.
An Iranian delegation is expected to be in Moscow on 20th February for fresh negociations on the Kremlin's offer to enrich all the uranium Tehran would need for a civil nuclear programme. The Europeans and the Americans support this Russian initiative, which has only received, up to now, half-hearted reactions from the Iranian side.
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