Word: reactor
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...Bomb, but neighboring countries think it unwise to test whether Kim Jong Il is bluffing. So getting Pyongyang back to the negotiating table?the "six-party talks" that the North walked out of last June?becomes more urgent by the month. Recently, the apparent shutdown of a reactor at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear power plant has increased anxiety that Pyongyang might be stalling for time while it harvests weapons-grade plutonium to make more warheads...
...must redouble efforts to improve nuclear-reactor protections against accidents and terrorism, to appropriately manage radioactive wastes, and to preclude misuse of civil nuclear energy for making nuclear weapons, in order to see whether a large expansion of this further carbon dioxide-free energy source can be made practical...
Even by the sometimes shrill standards of the New York Post, the headline seemed lurid: CHILLING DISCOVERY AFTER MANIAC'S THREAT: PLUTONIUM IN CITY'S WATER. Have New York City's 7 million residents been imbibing water that is laced with nuclear-reactor fuel...
There are two basic paths to producing bomb-grade material. One involves reprocessing the plutonium contained in spent nuclear fuel, a path taken by North Korea in the 1980s. But that method requires first building a nuclear reactor, a costly and cumbersome endeavor. Khan's experience in Europe steered him toward the cheaper option. Working the contacts he had made in Europe, he set out to acquire the rotational machines, known as centrifuges, that enrich uranium into bomb-grade material...
...connection established, another global pariah, Libya, sought him out. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had tried in the late 1980s to build his own nuclear program by importing German technology and engineers, but the effort failed. To make its bombs, Libya wanted to enrich uranium rather than produce plutonium in a reactor because, says the official, "with a reactor, you cannot hide anything." Khan's system was a perfect fit, and as the commercial relationship was launched, Khan's underlings whetted Gaddafi's appetite with an unexpected gift. Khan gave the Libyans a stack of technical instructions for how to build...