Reply To: Proliferation?

[Frenetic]

AndyL wrote: Hi Everyone

From finding this site over a year ago, it struck me what an elegant and exciting approach Focus Fusion was to the fusion problem. If the set of experiments underway in Chile are successful in three years time, we can all look back on that day and say “that was the day the world changed” in much the same way as for other great historical events!
However, it is planned to use deuterium as the fuel gas in one phase of these experiments, and this caused me to wonder – is there any possibility that Mr. Weapons Proliferator could use a Focus Fusion device with deuterium as a fast neutron source with which to breed, over a period of time, a quantity of fissile material from fertile isotopes of uranium or thorium?

So far, all the “weapons proliferators” have been Nations or agents of nations. Notice, if you will, that none of these proliferators needed a fusion reactor of any kind to achieve said proliferation. The possibility of this device, or any other device, contributing to “proliferation” is is well below negligible.

By the way, I don’t know how many people have noticed yet, but the NPT is basically dead. Kim Jong-il and the Iranians are demonstrating beyond all shadow of doubt that the treaty is completely unenforceable so long as the rest of the world leadership is as spinelesss as it is now.