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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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1041 points mpweiher | 4 comments | 12 Sep 25 18:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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pkoiralap ◴[12 Sep 25 18:52 UTC] No.45225326[source]▶
Asking because I don't know. How is enrichment governed? Say for instance if a country is only using it for energy vs defense/offense. And are there elements that can be specifically used for energy vs otherwise? Last I remember, having access to enriched uranium was grounds for a country to bomb another one.
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1. philipkglass ◴[12 Sep 25 19:00 UTC] No.45225426[source]▶
The only way to ensure that a civil uranium enrichment program remains strictly civil is via transparency and monitoring. A country that has mastered uranium enrichment technology for fueling civil power reactors could use the same technology to produce bomb-grade uranium. It actually takes more work to enrich natural uranium into fuel for power reactors than it takes to further enrich power reactor fuel into bomb material:

https://scipython.com/blog/uranium-enrichment-and-the-separa...

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2. pkoiralap ◴[12 Sep 25 19:20 UTC] No.45225636[source]▶
This is scary. so the extra effort to move from, say, 20% to 85% is relatively small compared with the effort to get up to 20% in the first place. Might as well build a feature into the reactor so that it only works with <=20%
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3. ivanjermakov ◴[12 Sep 25 22:28 UTC] No.45227486[source]▶
> Might as well build a feature into the reactor so that it only works with <=20%

How would this help? Nuclear power plant and enrichment facility are separate entities.

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4. pkoiralap ◴[13 Sep 25 20:56 UTC] No.45235232{3}[source]▶
I think two reasons. If reactors can't function above 20%, a country having access to >20% enriched payload is a certain violation. Vs "60% enrichment is still for clean energy, my reactor works with it". 2. If you are only buying the payload and not enriching it yourself, you can't do anything with >20% . More like mixing methyl alcohol in lab available ethyl alcohol, to deter lab techs from mixing water and having a rager.