The IAEA is turning up its latest concerns about Iran’s civilian nuclear program with media reports of a discovery of uranium enriched to 84% purity, by far the highest enrichment level to come out of Iran.
Iran is known to be producing uranium of up to 60% purity, and it should be noted that weapons grade is in excess of 90%. Thus, neither the 60% stockpile, nor these 84% particles, are actually a proliferation risk for atomic weapons.
The expected spin is that this newer top-line enrichment level is closer to 90%, therefore representing a big change. The misunderstanding is that the existence of 84% purity particles does not imply overall enrichment to that level.
It seems that no deliberate enrichment above 60% has taken place, and Iranian authorities confirms their operations are still set to 60% enrichment and below. So where did the 84% come from?
That’s still being looked into, but the IAEA suggests “it was a blip in the reconfigured cascades” when Iran set them to 60%. Iran and the IAEA are still in talks to figure it out.
Either way, the production of 84% particles was a one-off. They were not weapons-grade to begin with, and the Iranians don’t seem to be making effort to replicate that enrichment process, even if they suspected doing so was practical. It is effectively a fluke, and does not indicate any escalation of the process.
Nuclear weapons are very powerful 1940 technology. Endless war is unimaginative caveman social technology pushed by the US.
Iran is downwind from Israel. Pakistan and India are downwind from Iran. Russia is downwind from Europe. Georgia is where US ghouls measured radiation in children’s teeth. It is downwind from the New Mexico atom bomb test site and also involves greater distances than any of the above mentioned potentially adversarial countries.
Actually all Yank research on the affects of Radiation on civilians where done in Japan , after the two Nukes the yanks closed off Japan to outsiders because if the people of planet Earth had seen the results of the Nukes there would have been a out cry that would have seen the yanks as out casts from humanity , they have thousands of photos , miles of film which has never been put in the public domain , the reason for that is are ashamed of what they did to a civilian population.
Very good points, I would substitute “all” for “the first.” My impression is that studies of radioactive fall-out on hay fed to dairy cattle in the state of Georgia was timed and seen in the baby teeth of young people.
There were reports of Americans crawling all over the place with clipboards, taking notes. The bombs were different. I nice test, eh?
It got the foolish ideas in the heads of the Japanese militarists cleaned out quick.
Ever see Hiroshima Mon Amour? the American people wanted the war over with, their sons and daughters home,and to get back to normal life.After the Rape of Nanking and Korea, Pearl Harbor,the Okinawa craziness, the Bataan death march,Kamikazes-do you really think there was empathy for the Japanese? Who gives squat over Dresden? A bamboo spear from a 14 year old Japanese boy into a GI’s gut ain’t very fun either.
Russia should just supply Iran with as many Nukes that it wants if they want them , Israel has about 300 Nukes so why shouldn`t Iran have them ?.
It is a certainty that the only method for creating a lasting stability in the world is by every nation possessing a nuclear arsenal plus a world-wide delivering system. The UN never got that.
Here in the states, we have repeating and multiple cases of people comitting mass shootings due to their insanity.You want to give everyone nukes, and ICBMs.
A TRUULY responsible viewpoint.
Iranians aren’t stupid. They’ll develop their own thats low grade and flies at a lower altitude to avoid the famous “Iron Dome”.
One method for increasing the enrichment level is by throttling the flow of UF6 gas through a cascade of centrifuges.
One explanation might therefore be that someone at an enrichment facility decided to test how much throttling was required.