Curbing the spread of nuclear weaponsWith the 2005 Review Conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the background, this book provides a fully detailed but accessible and accurate introduction to the technical aspects of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons for the specialist and non-specialist alike. It considers nuclear weapons from varying perspectives, including the technology perspective, which views them as spillovers from nuclear energy programmes; and the theoretical perspective, which looks at the collision between national and international security – the security dilemma – involved in nuclear proliferation. It aims to demonstrate that international security is unlikely to benefit from encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons except in situations where the security complex is already largely nuclearised. |
From inside the book
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... cent of the material is uranium-235, is increasingly seen as commercially sensible, partly because reactors fuelled with slightly enriched uranium as opposed to natural uranium can squeeze more power out of each tonne of fuel. Uranium ...
... cent). Where natural uranium is the only fuel available, neutron economy is more critical. Water would absorb too many neutrons unless it were in the form of heavy water, where the ordinary hydrogen of water is replaced by heavy ...
... cent). By the formula, then, a 500 MW(e) Magnox reactor produces 1,500 g of plutonium a day and 450 kg a year (taken as 300 days, to allow for reactor shut-downs). This formula is very rough and more closely applicable to the maximum ...
... cent isotope 239, a pressurised water reactor (PWR), the most commercially successful modern design, will produce plutonium not only in half the quantities (megawatt for megawatt) but also comprising only 50 to 60 per cent the 239 ...
... cent uranium-235, is almost as useful for bomb purposes as any plutonium produced, provided some means of further enriching the uranium is at hand. However, any diversion of enriched uranium from a compact reactor would be a 'one-off ...
Contents
The International Atomic Energy Agency and safeguards | |
Understanding nuclearfree zones | |
United States policy on nonproliferation and the Nuclear Non | |
Bargaining for test ban treaties | |
A The Baruch Plan | |
B Atoms for Peace | |
Treaty of Tlatelolco documentation and texts | |
E Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean | |