Just what is a uranium stockpile anyway? I imagined ... [View all]

[reACTIONary]

.... Iran's "stockpile" to be something like a 900 lb stack of silver bars, maybe in wooden crates. But that does not seem to be the case.

From what I read, the uranium stockpile is in the form of a gas - uranium hexafluoride, aka UF6. This is the input and the output of the gas centrifuges that purify the uranium. It is stored in this form, probably in pressurized cylinders, and converted to metallic form just prior to actual use. This is done at a conversion facility. One such facility was a target of the recent attack.

According to one report, the Iranians stored the UF6 in containers that could be transported in the trunk of a typical car. So they must have had a lot of fairly small cylinders.