Well, I don’t really know about the easy part. But it’s really cheap, according to the Sydney, Australia company Silex (named after the process of “Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation”), which claims to have developed a separation technique involving streaming uranium through lasers tuned to a frequency that only “sees” the U-235 atoms. (This has been tried before, unsuccessfully.)
And we thought Iran, and let’s not forget North Korea, would be a problem with that clumsy old centrifuge technology. The article is at: Laser enrichment could cut cost of nuclear power (thanks to Zonk on Slashdot).
Two things: 1) Don’t worry, it’ll be export controlled. 2) Worry a lot, the process is owned by a private company.
Tags: uranium,U-235,laser separation,Silex,nuclear enrichment
UPDATE: 22Aug07 – A document from Los Alamos describing the process and some signatures is linked from FAS Secrecy News blog.
Filed under: nuclear weapons
