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| India-Pakistan |
| Pak building huge Plutonium production reactor |
| 2006-07-24 |
| Pakistan has begun building a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move which signals a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race, reports The Washington Post. 'Satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site show what appears to be a partially completed heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year, a 20-fold increase from Pakistan's current capabilities, according to a technical assessment by Washington-based nuclear experts,' says the Post article. The site is adjacent to Pakistan's only plutonium production reactor, 'a modest, 50-megawatt unit that began operating in 1998. By contrast, the dimensions of the new reactor suggest a capacity of 1,000 megawatts or more, according to the analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security, (ISIS). Pakistan is believed to have 30 to 50 uranium warheads, which tend to be heavier and more difficult than plutonium warheads to mount on missiles,' says the Post. |
| Posted by:john |
| #15 This has really been a very counterproductive move by China. I am not at all sure that the US and India would be nearly as close were it not for radiant Pakistan. Likewise with their little Korean puppet cementing U. S. relations with Japan. Right there they've made enemies of one third of the world's population and GDP. I doubt this will help their demographic difficulties. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-24 21:30 |
| #14 So are the Saudis cutting back on the funding? Is AQ Khan's network still too crippled to deliver the goods? Or are the Pakis just too corrupt and incompetent to finish it off? The reactor and associated facilities require serious industrial infrastructure that Pak just doesn't have. This is a country that is not able to make a high speed lathe, or a tractor. It produces less than 50 PhDs per annum at present, in all fields. During the first 40 years, all the universities and research institutions in Pakistan produced only 128 PhDs in scientific disciplines According to Hoodbhoy Although this country is home to 150 million people, there are perhaps fewer than 20 computer scientists of sufficient calibre who could possibly get tenure-track positions at some B-grade US university. In physics, even if one roped in every competent physicist in the country, it would not be possible to staff even one single good department of physics. As for mathematics: it is impossible to find even five real mathematicians in Pakistan. The social sciences are no better. |
| Posted by: john 2006-07-24 21:17 |
| #13 Prefix 5 class at Oberammergau back in the 70's Any chance of banning the nic thief? |
| Posted by: 6 2006-07-24 20:43 |
| #12 Here is the link to the ISIS report with satellite photos. Here is the money paragraph from the report: Based on the apparent rate of construction, the reactor could be finished within a few years. However, nothing suggests that Pakistan is moving quickly to finish this reactor. The driving forces behind the reactor completion schedule could be a shortage of necessary reactor components or other parts of the weapons-production infrastructure, such as the rate of heavy water production, the availability of a sufficient fuel reprocessing capacity or, perhaps, the availability of sufficient modern tritium recovery and packaging facilities. For example, Pakistan may not have enough heavy water for this reactor, which could require about 100-150 tonnes of heavy water. The Khushab site has a heavy water production plant2 able to produce an estimated 13 tonnes of heavy water a year, a relatively small production capability. Pakistan may not be able to reprocess all of the anticipated irradiated fuel from this reactor. It is known to process fuel to separate plutonium at the New Labs facility at Rawalpindi, and this facility was expanded between about 1998 and 2002. However, this increase in capacity was believed to be associated with the smaller, heavy water reactor. So are the Saudis cutting back on the funding? Is AQ Khan's network still too crippled to deliver the goods? Or are the Pakis just too corrupt and incompetent to finish it off? |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2006-07-24 19:39 |
| #11 With that much plutonium.............. I really don't want to think about it. But you know that when I was at the Prefix 5 class at Oberammergau back in the 70's I had a Brit Commander in the class that said one day when we were learning how to assemble a .75kT tactical nuke "you do know of course Major that one of these days one of those arab nutjob fanatics is going to get their mitts on one of these things and we are all going to have hell to pay for it" Very Prophetic words that wake me in the middle of the night these days..........OFTEN |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2006-07-24 19:37 |
| #10 Where 'ya been Zenman? |
| Posted by: 6 2006-07-24 17:25 |
| #9 Thanks. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-07-24 17:06 |
| #8 The article claims it is a heavy water reactor and implies they also have the ability to extract tritium from heavy water reactor coolant (something that only two countries - Canada and India are known to have developed the technology for). Paks don't have a heavy water production plant so they will probably buy it from China, in violation of NSG rules. The enriched uranium production at Kahuta is not commercial scale. It is enough for a small bomb program but not enough to fuel an entire reactor. |
| Posted by: john 2006-07-24 13:36 |
| #7 Where are the Pakis getting that much heavy water? And why would they, since they can enrich uranium and therefore make more compact reactors? Or did John correct the article and say it is some other type of reactor, like graphite? |
| Posted by: ed 2006-07-24 12:56 |
| #6 Thank you for confirming my worst suspicions, john. These Pakistani maggots are one of our major enemies. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-07-24 12:16 |
| #5 Guess they must have finished taking care of all those desperate earthquake victims. According to the Pak physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy, the aid money from the 1971 earthquake was diverted to fund the nuclear weapons program. He warned last year that a repeat of this was possible. |
| Posted by: john 2006-07-24 12:11 |
| #4 a 1000 ME(e) heavy water reactor Correction, this is 1000 MW Thermal |
| Posted by: john 2006-07-24 12:09 |
| #3 Guess they must have finished taking care of all those desperate earthquake victims. Can't leave all that foreign aid money just laying around now, can they? Sounds like they need another major "earthquake" (induced or otherwise), real bad. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-07-24 11:53 |
| #2 Way to go, A**Holes. |
| Posted by: newc 2006-07-24 10:23 |
| #1 Suddenly Pakistan can build a 1000 ME(e) heavy water reactor? Looks like the Chinese have violated the NPT again... |
| Posted by: john 2006-07-24 08:13 |