The West Can't Let Iran Have The Bomb (UK)

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 4-11-2006 | Con Coughlin

[ARealMothersSonForever]

Israel will not let Iran get the bomb.

Israel will do what we tell them to do. Any country that attempts to overfly Iraq with US provided aircraft will rapidly find out that we know how to exploit the features that we built in. The British are starting to figure out that Iran is going to hit them economically. And soon. With the help of the PRC.

[Marine_Uncle]

"I think you're referring to a plutonium-based "Fat Man" design. "Our" first uranium-based bomb, "Little Boy", did not, to the best of my knowlege, have a particularly sophisticated trigger, and was untested prior to first use."
One can only go by what we see in diagrams. I believe with the uranium bomb it was a proximity fuse that set off a explosive charge that drove the lesser of two fission masses into the larger one (down a tube). I believe that essentially a similar mechanism was used for the plutonium bomb in the context both used a proximity fuse that then set off a explosion moving the sub critical masses together in of course different geometric configurations. The bombs guts as you well know looked a lot different in how things where arranged.
So perhaps you are on to a very good point. In neither case would it be very difficult to design a functional "trigger mechanism". As we view the various diagrams it is apparent the plutonium bomb used a somewhat more sophisticated design both as how the sub critical masses where segregated as well as the means of triggering. For all we know they have various designs in place perhaps from the Paki.
I hope I am not coming off like they cannot eventually design a functional atom bomb. For they can. I mostly was trying to appeal to folks, that it may be a lot longer then some reports have suggested based on the idea if they are soley depending on using gas centifuge techniques, they have a long way to go before they will obtain adequate quantities of weapon grade uranium.

[wotan]

Possibly more relevant, I've heard the Iranians don't have the infrastructure to get their excess natural gas to market, so they just flare it off.

If they wanted energy, it would be a lot simpler and cheaper to just build a pipeline or a natural gas-powered electrical generating station to use that gas.

Possibly so. I don't know.

[RobbyS]

Japan, i gather,could produce a working nuclear devise within six months, but the Iranians could not.

[Marine_Uncle]

Where does Japan or Iran get the required amount of 90% plus enriched uranium from within a six month period? To name one component which must go into a uranium type atom bomb. Same goes for the required amount of PU-239 if they either where to go the plutonium route. I assume you are speaking about where they do not steal or purchase the materials from elsewhere. Perhaps I assume incorrectly. Your question is somewhat on the terse side.

[RobbyS]

I am talking about the time it would take them if they were to decide to go down that road. Given the engineering capabilities of the Japanese, I wonder if it would take them much longer than that. The chief limitation is that first step. which would drive the Chinese out of the minds.

[Marine_Uncle]

Fair enough answer. I was not trying to give you a hard time, just better wanted to understand the question.
Of course the Japanese are quite inventive. And I am sure they have exactly what configurations of particular centifuges they would quickly purchase and with the other parts of the system be able to quite quickly put the whole huge cascade system together. And there engineers, scientest, and programmers would most likely be able to write the appropriate software tools in at least a raw form (not specific CAD tools) in perhaps a half to a years time. But here you are dealing very highly trained people. Physicists well ground in many areas of the science engineering fields associated with these type activity.
So perhaps for them, it could be done. And they can pick and choose quite easily what hardware is required to do the job.
Now along with that. Let us remember before one runs the gas seperation process, they must put in place the refining processes that allow one to take raw uranium ore and convert it to yellow cake. Once the yellow cake is available in required quantities, then one can using chemical techniques convert it to uranaium hexafloride gas.
So it there is more to the equation then one might expect.
If the Japanese have no experience nor equipment in place to finely ground and treat the raw uranium ore into the next step. Then again they have to put in place a whole system to achieve this step.
Now if they where to work on all these issues and some other things not mentioned, could they do it in six months. I do not have an answer. And I would be mis-leading if I tried to venture a guess. I don't know.
I do however suspect that Iran is not Japan. Iran as any other nation that has trained nuclear scientist, engineers, electrical engineers, physical chemist etc., have the potential to do it. I for a minute would say they can't do it. But if they choose the gas seperation method to obtain weapon grade uranium, then all I am saying is it is going to take them years to accomplish that. They must somehow build or smuggle in literally tens of thousands of specific type centifuge machines. Unless they now have the engieering and applied manufacturing capability to make their own units.
If they can make their own centifuges. Well, then it depends on how long they take to make them. Think about it a moment. There are many type centifuge designs for given applications. American and Western countries have companies that design and produce them. They are a rather sophisticated piece of equipment. It is not so easy to produce a something like this on the fly. It can require many years of design and test to build a specific type of centifuge based on its rmp rating, ability to move a given volume of gas etc.. And these things are not low cost. Quite the opposite.
Now if Iran has obtain those 164 units and the associated piping etc., from say Pakistan. And has asemble it per spec, ran perhaps many test for who knows how long, could have been over a year or more, things get involved, before they actually fired the system up to start the gas seperation. Then I say they have a long road to walk before they will be able to assemble and quality test a total system capabile of producing 90% plus uranium U235. I do not believe Iran has such capability in this department. Their manufacturing capabilites are probably pretty limited. They do not have the accumulated wealth of engineers and designers from various industries say the US or Japan would have. You just don't take a few kids out of college with an undergrad and have them develope a new manufactoring industry in a short time. These centifuges require extremely well machined parts using approved manufacturing techiques to fashion the parts as well as in the assembly. So if they only got the 164 from out side the country. I doubt they are anytime soon going to be able to crate this whole project to reach their desired goal.
It could take then a few years to literally be able to assemble and test out a system that could be used to produce say 10-20% enrichment. And like I have commented elsewhere. It could take a few years to actually (assuming they can assemble quite a few thousand cascased systems) to be able to even process enough 3.5-5% enrichment grade to use in one reactor load (amount of fuel rods to make the reactor work for say two to five years).
It just is not that simple to do these things. I rest my case. If I am way off track so be it.

[DonnerT]

I don't think the fissile material Ahmadinijad is trying to produce is Uranium235. He is doing everything he can to concentrate and refine emotions. The material is Islamium1.5billion.

[Marine_Uncle]

"I don't think the fissile material Ahmadinijad is trying to produce is Uranium235. He is doing everything he can to concentrate and refine emotions. The material is Islamium1.5billion."
haha. You say in jest perhaps. But you may be far more correct then one might think. He stood on the frigen stage with a wooden box of sort, which probably contain a few microcuries of U235, and made it look like they where in full cycle production to create all their required fuel rods for the reactor(s). They are a long way off. But a lot of folks for some reason seem to prefer the dramatics. To each his own. Most all of us agree, these guys should be prevented from having the ability to produce atomic bombs in the future.

[DonnerT]

A bit tongue in cheek perhaps, but I'm dead serious.

I don't think Iran is likely to produce much of a nuclear arsenal any time soon. Iran's posturing is arming the Islamium bomb. Osama's test proved the technique though the yield was somewhat less than he desired. Let us pray that Mahmoud's attempt results in the same dissapointment.

[Marine_Uncle]

I take your position on this. Ahmadinajah's stage act was just that. It was meant to fire them up. Show defiance. Allah Akabar stuff. For all we know they may not really have extracted any U235 of an amount you can see with the human eye from such a small cascade. I sense a lot of folks do nut understand how many atoms must be seperated out and extracted from the gas mixture. It just is not that easy to do. It is like people seem to think one can throw a chunk of uranium ore into a kitchen blender and out pops weapon grade uranium.

[WoofDog123]

japan made some announcements in 2002-3 about possible nuclear bomb needs, 'missing' nuclear fuel, etc., which I saw as stealth comments to the effect that they could have a nuke in very little time. I would be very surprised if they have not put together many of the pieces (software, etc) and are just waiting for the word to put them all together.

[pau1f0rd]

Yes, it does look like that. Who knows what's going on in their heads?

[Marine_Uncle]

"japan made some announcements in 2002-3 about possible nuclear bomb need"
Perhaps one of these days we shall hear them make an announcement, it only seems inevitable.