Reprocessing, page-10

Moosey - what I find so difficult to accept is that the "technical difficulty" of producing nuclear weapons has much to do with proliferation. To me (and I do not include terrorist in this) most nation states could produce weapons if they had the "motivation' - proliferation IMO has little to do with obstacle that are put in the way of development. A very interesting article is below:

geopolitics of proliferation

This article appears to be well informed and the whole message comes down to "motivation" rather than "difficulty" however activists in this area all seem to bark up the tree of obstructing the advancement of science/engineering as a solution to the issue proliferation. In my view if the US or other countries go throwing their weight around by threatening countries and giving politically favoured countries (e.g. Israel) a "get out of jail free" card then you are practically guaranteeing proliferation; it just human nature not to want to keel over to a bully.

Both MG and others on this forum who have knowledge of the physics (e.g scienceboy and cjliebs) who have inside knowledge say that the LIS process is complex. With the fact that commercialization is still more difficult it appears to me that it is outside the capabilities of a terrorist group but that to a reasonable capable first world or even a devlopig state (i.e Canada, India, Australia, South Korea, Japan) development of nuclear weapons is no real problem with centrifuges and that if they have a nuclear power reactor (and therfore Pu) that mastering the published Purex process (or similar processes) is well within a reasonably developed nation states capabilities. In the future (with Quantum cascade laser or free electron lasers) using LIS to produce weapons grade U235 or isolate weapons grade Pu239 from reactor grade Pu could be even easier. IMO it useless trying to stop technical development (i.e stopping LIS and/or reprocessing) is the way forward must be to take away the motivation (as in the above article by Maudlin Economics). It maybe self satisfying for US congressmen to say to foreign dignitaries that they do not reprocess but none of them take much notice particularly if the US is going around shouting "America first", biasing world trade (i.e the TPP), demanding the ascendancy of the US$ for world trade (i.e oil) and generally throwing its overwhelming military muscle around. The reason we now find ourselves in a dilemma with North Korea has little to do with their technical capabilities and much more to do with failure by the US to honor agreements. IMO opinion a much larger issue is global warming and base load power (which is bound to increase with electric cars). IMO the US (and the world) needs to conserve its need for fuel (by reusing nuclear waste), maximizing clean energy production and minimize environmental damage (make maximum use of repositories by minimizing wastes). Proliferation is a political issue to be addressed through minimizing motivation with credible and severe penalties for transgressing. without special exceptions (i.e Israel/India/Pakistan etc).