Mark Fitzpatrick argues that if Pyongyang has perfected the highly-enriched-uranium route to a bomb, then there will be heightened concern about the potential for the proliferation of these weapons or materials.
The HEU Agreements provide for the conversion of approximately 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium contained in Russian nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium for use as fuel in commercial nuclear reactors.
WHITEHOUSE: Executive Order--Russian Highly Enriched Uranium
It called on states with reactors burning high-enriched uranium to switch to the low-enriched sort.
That, Mr Netanyahu said, represented the point when Iran would have sufficient 20%-enriched uranium to produce enough of the weapons-grade variety needed for a nuclear warhead.
Press reports over the New Year state that Brazil is set to manufacture highly-enriched uranium (HEU) for its two nuclear power plants, and according to Samuel Faiad of the government-run Nuclear Industries of Brazil, to sell any HEU surplus on the world market.
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Most are run by universities and use low-enriched uranium rather than highly enriched uranium.
Highly-enriched uranium is used in some 100 nuclear research reactors and other facilities in 40 countries.
The six world powers made Iran an offer for stopping its processing of medium-enriched uranium, EU officials said.
But the fear is that the same centrifuges could be reconfigured to make high-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
The plan envisages Iran's low-enriched uranium being shipped overseas for processing into fuel.
We are continuing research on the feasibility of converting research reactors in the United States and Russia to low-enriched uranium fuel.
And France agreed to transform the higher-enriched uranium into metallic nuclear fuel.
The authority has also proposed moving other material called "exotics", which includes fuel containing highly-enriched uranium, from Dounreay to Sellafield at a later date.
BBC: Nuclear material moved by train from Scotland to England
It also says that Iran has boosted its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) by 500kg to more than 1, 300kg in the last six months.
Ham-fisted attempts by Brazil and Turkey to revive the deal would have provided Iran with 20%-enriched uranium but brought none of the other benefits.
Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium is bigger: only about half of it would be needed to produce the equivalent fuel load for the medical reactor.
The draft plan would require Iran to send about 1, 200kg (2, 600lb), or 70%, of its low-enriched uranium to Russia by the year's end for processing.
To add to their suspicions, some traces of low-enriched uranium found in Iran have yet to be explained, and may indicate more enrichment work than has been owned up to.
The Harvard team suggests speeding up a project launched in 1994 to purchase 500 tonnes of highly-enriched uranium released from Russian weapons and blend it down over 20 years for use in civilian reactors.
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The United States and other leading nations have been negotiating with Iran to send low-enriched uranium abroad to be turned into material for use in medical research and treatment at a reactor in Tehran.
The idea was for Iran to ship 1, 200kg of its low-enriched uranium overseas to produce fuel for a research reactor, thus leaving the country for a while with too small a stockpile with which to make a bomb.
He worked closely with the White House in the final months of his tenure at the IAEA to try to forge an agreement with Iran that would have seen Tehran ship out the majority of its low-enriched uranium to a third country.
The other is an agreement on a proposal to take Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) and send it to Russia and France for conversion into fuel rods for use in Iran's small research reactor in Tehran, which produces isotopes for cancer treatment.
U.S. and European officials taking part in the diplomacy with Iran this week in Almaty said the focus will again be to get Tehran to cease its production of 20%-enriched uranium and agree to ship out a sizable portion of its stockpile to a third country.
If enacted in its current form, Section 621 of this year's Energy bill , by contrast, would allow foreign companies to receive U.S. HEU for use in medical isotope production without having to move toward a low-enriched uranium (LEU) target, even if it is technically feasible for them to do so.
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The most obvious attempt was when we gave them an offer that said we are going to provide the conversion of some of the low-enriched uranium that they already have into the isotopes that they need for their medical research and for hospitals that would serve up to a million Iranian citizens.
Ukraine, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Kazakhstan were among those promising to dispose of bomb-usable enriched uranium or plutonium on their soil.
The device's primary source of neutron radiation was the radioactive element californium, but the stream of neutrons produced by the californium was multiplied by passing it through a lattice of highly enriched uranium U-235, whose nuclear fission released additional neutrons.
Experts including Duelfer and Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, believe Saddam has the sophisticated triggers, weapon housings and everything else he needs to build a nuclear device--except for a sufficient supply of weapons-grade enriched uranium.
For uranium to work in a nuclear reactor it must be enriched to contain 2-3% uranium-235 while weapons-grade uranium must contain 90% or more uranium-235.
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