

Obama announces nuclear breakthrough on landmark India trip - rickdale
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/01/25/india-obama-idINKBN0KY02020150125

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dogma1138
Eh? how is this even possible considering that India did not sign the NPT also
considering that technically in that weird hate-love 4 way between Russia,
India, China and Pakistan the US is historically been supporting Pakistan
while India had closer relations with Russia.

The NPT thing alone is like the US openly providing nuclear technology to
Israel, or building nuclear reactors in Iran.

Not to mention that even tho this is purely "civilian"(like that thing
actually exists) nuclear technology it sure will make Pakistan nervous, and
when either India or Pakistan gets nervous Russia and China get on alert.

If the US actually opens trading in nuclear technology with a non NPT
signatory what will prevent Russia from doing the same with N. Korea or what
will prevent Iran from boasting see the Americans selling nuclear tech to a
"rogue state" why can't we buy it as a NPT signatory?

This is either a very misquoted or misguided story, or a one big FU from the
US to one of the most important treaties of the 20th century.

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hga
I'd bet on the FU ... but of course you can blame that on Bush ^_^ (those
issues were ... finessed back then, this is about liability). As for:

" _Not to mention that even tho this is purely "civilian"(like that thing
actually exists) nuclear technology_"

To a great degree it does exist with civilian reactor designs that can't
easily change fuel, e.g. not the Canadian CANDU or Soviet RBMK (Chernobyl)
ones. If you brew uranium fuel rods for much longer than a month, you get too
much of two undesirable isotopes.

One encourages fission, and even in weapons grade plutonium precludes gun
assembly warhead designs like Little Boy, the other gives off a lot of heat
which is useful in powering deep space probes but otherwise is ranges from a
pain in weapons grade to giving off 100kW of heat per what I've read.

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dogma1138
Not very familiar with the RBMK design, but the CANDU reactor is a heavy water
breeder reactor it does produces weapons grade plutonium in quite good
amounts.

It's fuel cycle isn't optimized for doing so, and they actually intentionally
have a burn stage in which the WG PU oxide is mixed with Uranium to burn it
out of the spent fuel. But if you tweak the fuel cycle slightly, and forgo the
burn phase you are getting a very good PU 239 factory.

If anything trade in nuclear technology has to be done with countries like
India and Pakistan it should be in nuclear fail safes, and command and control
systems.

The US system has so many fail safes and checks that even the president unlike
in the movies can't launch a nuke with a button, ground silos can be launched
within 30-45min, subs can take hours with the new regulations and launch prep.

On the other hand no one knows which nuclear fail safes Indian or Pakistani
nukes have if any, and their command and control system is completely none
existent, India launched a central network in 2009 but as far as it goes for
both of those countries nuclear launch capabilities still remain within the
hands of local field commanders once the forces go on launch ready alert.

Blame Bush, Obama or Osama frankly my dear i don't care, but the worlds first
nuclear power, and the defacto "world police" should not trade in nuclear
technologies with a country who didn't sign the NPT, especially when it has a
nuclear armed neighbor that could turn into an AQ run state over night.

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hga
Apparently the RBMK design was in part based on the Soviet Union's much better
ability to make pipes than truly large pressure vessels. It's graphite
moderated, water is a neutron poison (+ positive void coefficient = outlawed
in the the US by demand of Edward Teller, along with any but the newest of the
CANDU designs), the pipes containing the fuel are vertical and can be
individuality serviced, thanks of course due to its now notorious lack of
containment. Almost certainly intended as a dual use reactor, although I
wouldn't be surprised if only some of them were used to breed plutonium.

I would hope we have more knowledge of e.g. the Indian and Pakistani nuke
systems, then again the simple fact that 90% of the CIA's employees work in
the US is enough to make you highly skeptical of our nation's HUMINT. Then
again we the US are primarily concerned with them falling into the wrong hands
(a parochialism that does not enhance regional or ultimately world stability),
and I heard back in the '80s from some friends who were in a position to know
that we leaked to the Soviets everything they needed to know about Permissive
Action Links to safeguard their nukes. And this of course eventually devolves
to a people problem ... a very good argument against NP.

As for your last point, while I don't necessarily agree with it, I think the
theory is that India isn't going to forswear nukes (South Africa is the only
nation that has after developing them), India isn't an enemy, potential or
real, like the other "nuclear rogue states" or likely ones in the future, so
cozying up to them in this area is not going to produce the moral hazard WRT
to the NPT and NP like, e.g., our tacit acceptance of Iran's imminent
completion of warheads. And I'd note that on the other hand, our arranging the
deposing and likely, although not inevitable death of Muammar Gaddafi
demonstrated a very harsh lesson on giving up your WMD programs, undoing
whatever good was done here WRT Saddam Hussein.

Of course, you could argue that the current situation with Iran is the sort of
thing you'd expect by our not continuing an ultra hard line on NP. Me, I'm
going to continue to keep handy my copies of _Nuclear War Survival Skills_
along with all the other stuff I collected during the Cold War, including my
mother's Civil Defense Block Mother sign, back from the late '60s when we
still cared about the survival of the nation.

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known
The new deal resolved differences over the liability of suppliers to India in
the event of a nuclear accident and U.S. demands on tracking the whereabouts
of material supplied to the country.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried
everything else." \--Winston Churchill

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Mithaldu
By breakthrough they're sadly not talking about a scientific discovery, but
about a trade agreement.

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slashnull
Mh, it's unclear in the article, but perhaps the US nuclear energy companies
will finally be able to install the new and safer designs they haven't been
able to build because of the high-profile fuckups of the old, unsafe designs?

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slashnull
Obama announces India breakthrough on landmark nuclear trip

Obama announces nuclear India on landmark breakthrough trip

India breakthrough nuclear trip on landmark Obama announce

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aaron987
Headline bait. I was expecting some exciting breakthrough in nuclear reactor
technology or something.

