Memo to Fox News: Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy Are Not The Same

[kristopher]

8. "We need...a roadmap for guarding against weapons proliferation"

There isn't one. If you have a way to do it, let's hear it, because no one in the past 50 years has been able to devise a way to sell nuclear power with the "energy self sufficiency" argument while simultaneously denying countries the right to refine their own fuel if they wish.

Inspections don't work for two reasons:
1) they are voluntary. Once a country has the facilities in place for refining they can halt inspections if they wish.
2) the amount of "slop" in the fuel cycle accounting system allows for the gradual accumulation of enough material for making weapons.

The idea of using breeder reactors (IFR, thorium or otherwise) just makes the problem worse.

Since we're on the topic.

Fukushima, Nuclear Power Plants And The Middle East: What Could Go Wrong?

TEL AVIV, Israel -- As Western democracies re-evaluate their dependence on nuclear energy in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima plant meltdown in 2011, the Middle East is forging ahead into the atomic age. According to projections from Nuclear Energy Insider, which supplies forecasts and analysis on the nuclear energy markets in the Middle East and North Africa, about $200 billion will be spent over the next 15 years in the two regions, where a total of 37 new reactors will be built...

http://www.ibtimes.com/fukushima-nuclear-power-plants-middle-east-what-could-go-wrong-1316621

With solar prices plummeting as they are I doubt if 37 reactors are going to be built, but the non-economic dynamics laid out in the article are pretty accurate.