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Natural Sciences     Social Sciences     Humanities     Arts     Applied Arts and Sciences     Recreation An encyclopedia project—and more! Welcome to Citizendium, a wiki for providing free knowledge where authors use their real, verified names and credentials. We welcome anyone who wants to share their knowledge by writing articles on virtually any subject, and by improving articles written by others. See Recent Changes—an overview of articles we are writing now. Join us Join here and start a new article or improve existing ones. Get started: How to collaborate | How to format pages Wikipedians are very welcome! Our help system Questions and answers to help you find the information you need More about the project We have 17,539 articles at different stages of development, of which 0 are expert-approved. Our community is collegial and congenial; everyone writes under his or her verified real name. We prefer new material but allow work from other sites to be imported and improved under certain conditions. For a brief guide on what Citizendium is and is not, see Myths and Facts; for more details, see the frequently-asked questions page. Students in higher education write here as part of their courses under our Eduzendium initiative. We have a Charter to provide a framework for governance. For more details on participation, see Why Citizendium? and Why I Contribute. To learn more about the project, see our article on ourselves, our Help System, our financial report and our Statistics page. Follow us on Twitter (general news; new pages), Facebook or Google+. Comment on articles nominated for approval. You can discuss any article on its Talk page. Our help system Questions and answers to help you find the information you need From the HOME page you can get started, get technical help, see our policies, and explore our organization in detail. We Need Support From Donations! Please help! Funds are used to pay for hosting our servers. See our financial report for complete details. Please make your donations here.

Some of our finest Approved Articles (0) Developed Articles (1,148) (17,539 total articles) Every minute of every day, millions of curious apes click billions of links, each tracing their own miniature voyages of discovery. — Martin Robbins in a blog post for The Guardian        —add a quotation about knowledge or writing •Did You Know? •Citizendium Blog - Latest entry: 01-Jan-2013 Monthly Donation Day  |  Monthly Donor Honor Roll CZ:Monthly Honor Roll of Users Editing the Wiki Featured Article about Nuclear weapons proliferation is one of the four big issues that have held back worldwide deployment of peaceful nuclear power. This article will address the proliferation questions raised in Nuclear power reconsidered. As of 2022, countries with nuclear weapons have followed one or both of two paths in producing fissile materials for nuclear weapons: enrichment of uranium to very high fractions of U-235, or extraction of fissile plutonium (Pu-239) from irradiated uranium nuclear reactor fuel. The US forged the way on both paths during its World War II Manhattan Project. The fundamental aspects of both paths are well understood, but both are technically challenging. Even relatively poor countries can be successful if they have sufficient motivation, financial investment, and, in some cases, direct or illicit assistance from more technologically advanced countries. The International Non-proliferation Regime The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has a vigorous program to prevent additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is the cornerstone arrangement under which strategic rivals can trust, by independent international verification, that their rivals are not developing a nuclear weapons threat. The large expense of weapons programs makes it very unlikely that a country would start its own nuclear weapons program, if it knows that its rivals are not so engaged. With some notable and worrying exceptions, this program has been largely successful. Paths to the Bomb It is frequently claimed that building a civil nuclear power program adds to the weapons proliferation risk. There is an overlap in the two distinct technologies, after all. To build a bomb, one needs Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) or weapons-grade plutonium (Pu-239). Existing reactors running on Low Enriched Uranium (LEU, under 5% U-235) or advanced reactors running on High Assay LEU (HALEU,up to 20% U-235) use the same technology that can enrich uranium to very high levels, but configured differently. Enrichment levels and centrifuge configurations can be monitored using remote cameras, on-site inspections, and installed instrumentation -- hence the value of international inspections by the IAEA. Using commercial power reactors as a weapons plutonium source is an extremely ineffective, slow, expensive, and easily detectable way to produce Pu. Besides the nuclear physics issues, refueling pressurized water reactors is both time-consuming and obvious to outside observers. That is why the US and other countries developed specialized Pu production reactors and/or uranium enrichment to produce fissile cores for nuclear weapons. Future Threats and Barriers Minimizing the risk of future proliferation in states that want to buy nuclear reactors or fuel might require one or more barriers: 1) Insisting on full transparency for all nuclear activities in buyer states, including monitoring and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 2) Limiting fuel processing to just a few supplier states that already have weapons or are approved by the IAEA. 3) Ensuring that fuel at any stage after initial fabrication has an isotopic composition unsuitable for weapons. "Spiking" the initial fuel with non-fissile isotopes, if necessary. 4) Limiting the types of reactors deployed to buyer states. In general, breeders are less secure than burners. Sealed reactor modules are more secure than reactors with on-site fuel processing. 5) Providing incentives and assurances for buyer states to go along with all of the above. 6) Application of diplomatic pressure, sanctions, and other economic measures to non-compliant states. 7) Agreement that any reactor declared rogue by the IAEA will be "fair game" for any state feeling threatened. Footnotes