[Owen]

People, wait a second.

Uranium when it comes out of the ground is 99.3% U238. 0.7% U-235. U-235 is reactor fuel and bomb material.

BUT.

If that is the ratio out of the ground, you centrifuge it to move the U238 outwards on the curve of the centrifuge. U-235, being a tiny bit lighter, is on the inner part.

You do this for a while and you scrape out the U238. After rather a long time you get the ratio to 95% U238 and 5% U235.

That’s the % requirement for reactor fuel, and Iran is completely entitled to have reactors.

Bomb material has to be much higher. 50-80% U235. That is a long time centrifuging.

Point being, no, you don’t tell them they can’t spin Uranium to create fuel. That’s like telling them they are not allowed to grow food. A completely innocent activity.

What you want to prevent is the elevation to 10+ times more concentration of U235. Assuming you don’t think they are entitled to do whatever science they want.

[Tell It Right]

We shouldn’t let them even play around with it. These are the leaders who regularly lead their masses in chanting “death to America”. Why try to let them find that line between enough but not too much?

[Carry_Okie]

Point being, no, you don’t tell them they can’t spin Uranium to create fuel. That’s like telling them they are not allowed to grow food. A completely innocent activity.

It is "innocent" only if that 5% limit can be validated. This is a fundamentally antagonistic, violent, borderline suicidal, and dishonest regime. Such validation is impossible.

I don't like pinning our future on the impossible.

[nuke_road_warrior]

Yes, enrichment less than 20% U-235 is considered Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) and is considered usable for power generating and research reactors. Whether Iran Has a “right” to LEU depends on its usage and various international agreements, as well as independent monitoring of enrichment facilities, reactors, laboratory facilities, etc.

Iran has categorically refused international monitoring, and violated even the joke of the Obama era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) before the ink was dry. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and others have determined that the number of centrifuges in use far exceeds those needed for LEU production to meet Iran's non-weapons needs. By all accounts, Iran has been been enriching U-235 to weapons grade levels for some time and is estimated to be on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has no “right” to High Enriched Uranium (HEU), nor to develop nuclear weapons.

Anyone who believes Iran will agree to meaningful outside inspection, and keep to LEU is delusional.