Proliferation, Plutonium and Policy/Institutional and Technological Impediments to Nuclear Weapons Propagation provides a comprehensive account of the political and technological aspects of nuclear weapons proliferation. The technical feasibility of denaturing plutonium is addressed and the extent of the weapons proliferation problem is analyzed. Strategies for minimizing nuclear weapons propagation are recommended. This book is comprised of four chapters and opens with an overview of nuclear fission and the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation, paying particular attention to the importance of international agreements and safeguards in achieving a meaningful (but non-zero) level of restraint on nuclear weapons proliferation. The next chapter considers the use of denatured plutonium and other fission reactor byproducts as a technological option for mitigating proliferation problems. The impact of denatured plutonium on the global operation of nuclear reactors is also discussed. The final chapter assesses the major implications of all proliferation problems within the framework of a sound antiproliferation strategy. This monograph will be of interest to political scientists, policymakers, diplomats, and government officials.

Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Politics and technology intersect in the international effort to prevent nuclear proliferation. Written for scientists, policy makers, journalists, students, and concerned citizens, The Politics and Technology of Nuclear Proliferation makes a highly complex subject understandable. This comprehensive overview provides information about both the basic technologies and the political realities. Methods of producing weapon materials�plutonium and highly enriched uranium�as well as their use in bombs are described in detail, as is the generally successful international effort to prevent the spread of the ability to make nuclear weapons. In explaining the problems the world will face if nuclear weapons become generally available, Mozley summarizes and reviews the methods used to prevent proliferation and describes the status of those nations involved in trade in nuclear materials. He places emphasis on the danger of attack by renegade nations or terrorist groups, particularly the possibility that weapon material might be stolen from the presently impoverished and unstable former Soviet Union.