Word: reactors
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
MAJOR PROJECTS: China is adding capacity faster than any other country in the world and plans to build about two reactors a year for the next 16 years, at a cost of up to $2 billion a reactor...
...years have passed since Washington confronted Pyongyang with evidence indicating that it was secretly working on a new nuclear weapons program. Since then, North Korea has pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, kicked out inspectors from the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, and boasted openly about refashioning used reactor fuel into bombs. Today, with perhaps as many as eight nuclear devices in the North Korean arsenal, the clock is ticking?the U.S. has said it cannot tolerate a nuclear-tipped North Korea, but it has failed to shut down the bomb factories. At some point the U.S. Administration will...