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| India-Pakistan |
| India can produce up to 50 nukes per year |
| 2006-06-19 |
| NEW DELHI, June 19 (UPI) -- A former Indian intelligence official estimates that under the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, Delhi could manufacture up to 50 nuclear warheads a year. Former Research and Analyses Wing Additional Secretary J. K. Sinha said: "Under the deal, India shall retain six unsafeguarded reactors and shall have the capability of producing nearly 50 nuclear warheads per year." The Pakistani Newspaper reported on June 18 that Sinha wrote in the Indian Defense Review that a U.S. supply of nuclear fuel combined with material from India's Nuclear Suppliers Group would free India's existing capacity to produce up to 286 pounds annually of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for its nuclear weapons program. Sinha wrote that the agreement placed India's entire Fast Breeder Reactor program out of safeguards, noting: "The potential of the FBR technology is huge for India's nuclear weapons program and for power generation." The nuclear agreement, finalized during U.S. President George W. Bush's March trip to India but still awaiting passage through U.S. Congress, has been harshly condemned internationally because it is viewed as allowing India to evade a number of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards. |
| Posted by:john |
| #2 Fact is, these reactors are being kept off the safeguard list, not to make bombs, but to keep ElBaradei's inspectors away. The Indian nuclear scientists don't really trust the IAEA. Just a small proportion of the plutonium output is enough to satisfy India's weapons grade plutonium needs. India will do as it has always done, siphon off a little material for its military program from the much larger civilian program. It did this with the missile program. The civilian space program is quite sophisticated. The core solid booster of the PSLV for instance is one of the largest solid rocket motors in the world. A small amount of this technology ends up in the military missile program. |
| Posted by: john 2006-06-19 19:18 |
| #1 His math is wrong. The 100 MW NRX type reactor "Dhruva" at Bombay alone produces 30 kg of plutonium a year. Six 220 MW CANDU reactors, Dhruva and the replacement for the 30 MW CIRUS NRX reactor (an even bigger NRX reactor - perhaps 200 MW) plus the 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor (which would breed Plutonium 239 and Uranium 233 in its breeder blankets) would produce significantly more plutonium than 130 kg a year. The core of the Indian Fast Breeder uses two tons (2000 kg) of plutonium. (The pit of an implosion weapon requires 5 kg of weapons grade or 7 kg of reactor grade plutonium). |
| Posted by: john 2006-06-19 18:39 |