re: #661 LudwigVanQuixote

I heard GE dont pay taxes in the USA. How wonderful.

From the post:
Now General Electric Hitachi wants a licence from US regulators to build the world’s first SILEX plant in North Carolina.

Dr Slakey says that cannot be allowed because it is too dangerous.

“From everything I’ve heard about this plant, it’s too risky to proceed,” he said.

Dr Slakey says laser enrichment is dangerous because it is almost undetectable.

The SILEX process is 75 per cent smaller than current enrichment technologies, drawing no more electricity than a dozen homes.

“This next generation technology is so efficient and so small that we would no longer be able to see it with our satellites and we would no longer be able to detect whether there was some power source going into it, because it uses so little power,” he said.

And with US president Barack Obama convening his nuclear security summit in Washington, Dr Slakey says regulators must take into account proliferation risks before licensing new technologies.

“Historically every enrichment technology - that is every technology that has been used to develop nuclear fuel, every single one of them - has proliferated despite best efforts to keep the secret,” he said.

America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it will look closely at security measures to protect SILEX’s secrets.