Chile Hands Over Highly Enriched Uranium To the United States

Chile Hands Over Highly Enriched Uranium To the United States

latindispatch.com

Chile became one of the first countries to hand over highly enriched uranium (HEU) from its nuclear reactors to the United States for safe storage. The Associated Press reported the story yesterday, the same day that President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev signed a nuclear arms control treaty.

(visit the link for the full news article)

"One of the first 'countries to hand over highly enriched uranium'..."

So, you have an earthquake in Chili, it hands over its enriched uranium because Uncle Sam is the safest place to store other countries' uranium! Hum.

The news crew was able to film the removal sometime in "February." Interesting video. No date specific date is given of the removal, but the earthquake also happened in February, which I can only assume occurred after the removal of the uranium, as it was sent via Santiago Chili.

Why does this seem just a little odd? Are other countries giving the US their uranium for safekeeping as well? I don't remember hearing about that on the news anywhere.

I recall reading somewhere that Haiti is rich in uranium too.

What do the rest of you think?


latindispatch.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Down-blend it with DU, load it up into a reactor and you have fuel given to you for free.

Originally posted by Gutterpus
Why does this seem just a little odd? Are other countries giving the US their uranium for safekeeping as well? I don't remember hearing about that on the news anywhere.

Yes, we currently store other countries' uranium and have for many years. There are very strict controls and they come and check on it from time to time. Russia is one such country that I know of that we have been storing for since the end of the cold war. Which is why I am a little confounded by this statement in the article, which makes it sound like this is something new.

Chile became one of the first countries to hand over highly enriched uranium (HEU) from its nuclear reactors to the United States for safe storage.

At face value I see nothing hear, but was safe storage the only reason they would hand it over? Was this Chile's uranium? what were they planning to do with it if so?

Something seems out of place, any terrorist using a nuke is just asking for there whole place of origin to get blown to smithereens, what would be there advantage for doing this?

Where did Chile get highly enriched uranium in the first place.

Chile became one of the first countries to hand over highly enriched uranium (HEU) from its nuclear reactors to the United States for safe storage.

Is this just a media gone/is stupid story.

Yes uranium is enriched to make reactor fuel but never to the point of being called highly enriched uranium.

Highly enriched uranium is only used in weapons programs.

This is the problem with Iran.
they are enriching beyond reactor grade

Reactor grade is about 2% to 20% low to mildly enriched uranium

Anything above 80% is weapons grade and highly enriched uranium

Anything above 20% is highly enriched uranium (but not necessarily weapons grade). Some research reactors use HEU, but power reactors do not. US Nuclear submarines run on weapons grade uranium which allows them to extend (or remove) refueling outages and also have more compact reactors.

[edit on 10/4/2010 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by ANNED
Where did Chile get highly enriched uranium in the first place.

Lots of countries have this capability... doesn't mean they have the capability to deliver it in the form of a weapon though.

A good graphic here:

www.time.com...

It should be noted that in Chile's case, the objective in sending it to the U.S. was to down-blend it.