Anti-green ("The proposal is for civil not military applications. Australia has stringent safeguards. An Australian civil industry in my opinion is no threat to world peace.")

The development of the nuclear supply chain in Australia could lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons in our region (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, http://www.aspi.org.au ) and U exports to India could spark a Pakistan/China deal.

Safeguards don't apply to military facilities & don't guarantee inspections anyway, but do facilitate diversion of domestic uranium reserves for weapons.

"Whether or not Aussie uranium goes directly into Chinese warheads or whether it is used in power stations in lieu of uranium that goes into Chinese warheads makes little difference." - Taipei Times, 21/1/06.

If we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear to back out a lot of coal then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. - Al Gore.

Australia's uranium, once irradiated in reactors, has produced enough Pu for about 8,600 weapons (ASNO, 2003-04 Annual Report). If even the smallest amount of this uranium ends up in nuclear weapons then mining companies like BHPB and Rio Tinto are responsible for a major WMD problem. - Dr Jim Green, Friends of the Earth.

If you can enrich uranium to 5% for nuclear power then you can get to the 93% needed for nuclear weapons, therefore it's a dual purpose technology". - Dr Frank Barnaby.

"The development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the development of atomic energy for bombs are in much of their course interchangeable and interdependent." - D Acheson & D Lilienthal, 'A report on the international control of atomic energy', 16/3/1946.

"Almost every action, piece of research, technological development or industrial activity carried out in the peaceful uses of atomic energy could also be looked upon as a step in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. There is such an overlap in the military and peaceful technologies in these areas that they are virtually one." - Phillip Baxter, former head of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, 1968.

Further to the above, today's update on Howard's reversal of long held principles on selling uranium to India & weapons nations:

"Whatever reactors we put under safeguards will be decided at India's discretion. We are not firewalling between the civil and military programs in terms of manpower or personnel. That's not on."
India had no intention to quarantine its military program from its civilian program because nuclear scientists would work across both programs. - India's chief scientific adviser, Rajagopala Chidambaram, in an interview with 'The Hindu' newspaper.
- The Age, 16/8/07 Uranium sale to fuel arms race
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/uranium-sale-to-fuel-arms-race-imran/2007/08/15/1186857593210.html

This is in violation of the Treaty of Rarotonga which came into law in 1986, acknowledged by Leonard Spector - Deputy Director, James Martin Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies, Monterey Institute for International Studies, California.
Interview:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2007/2006382.htm

And Australia is bound to uphold treaties it has ratified under the Article XVIII of the Vienna Convention on Treaties.
http://www.oas.org/legal/english/docs/Vienna%20Convention%20Treaties.htm

To quote a colleague of the Medical Association of the Prevention of War:
The decision to sell uranium to India is a seismic shift. See you in court Mr. Howard .... unless there is a seismic shift in government first.

http://www.icanw.org

Ideally questions on bomb making should be answered by experts. Yet, all those engaged in this work are bound by a high degree of state security law.

So I venture this opinion.

Atomic bomb making is a complex difficult and expensive technology. Therefore a country has to have a strong motivation to go down this path. Some countries have indeed abandoned the attempt, notably South Africa and Libya. The Iran bomb is always sometime into the future. The North Korea test as far as can be determined was of low yield (still a big
bang) and probably only of limited success.

The allies did not need a power industry to manufacture a bomb. To best of my knowledge Israel and North Korea do not have working power reactors.

A uranium bomb according to Pugwash (1) is relatively easy to make and detonate. Not much risk to the bomb maker, except for a criticality accident. The problem is in obtaining or manufacture of highly enriched uranium (HEU).

Enrichment is a difficult and laborious technology to apply and few counties have or even need the capability.

Natural uranium contains about 0.7% U-235. Power reactors require enrichment to between 3-5% Weapons grade is about 90% although it is possible that enrichment to above 20% is weapons useable.

Some HEU is still used for fuel in a few research reactors and possible the nuclear plant in some submarines. Most research reactors including the Australian reactor at Lucus Heights are fuelled by Low enriched Uranium (LEU).

Pugwash believes countries with stock piles of HEU such as Russia, USA. have very high security in place. Plans are advanced to phase out HEU. The best way to handle HEU is to dilute it down with natural uranium to make LEU fuel.
[To be continued]

[Continued]
With regard to a plutonium bomb I found this quote on the Internet.

"Most people seem unaware that if separated U-235 is at hand
it's a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion, whereas if only
plutonium is available, making it explode is the most difficult
technical job I know."
Luis W. Alvarez, a key participant in the construction of the first
US nuclear weapons and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics,
1987; see Luis W. Alvarez, Adventures of a Physicist (Basic Books,
1988), p. 125." (2)

Reference 2 or the Milnet Nuclear Weapons FAQ (3) provides information on Plutonium Bomb making.
The question is often raised can the plutonium from spent fuel rods be used to make a bomb. In theory perhaps yes, but in practice the technical problems of gamma radiation from contaminants, excess heat from radioactive decay etc. would make this a daunting task.

“The only publicly known US test of a reactor-grade device was a 1962
explosion, partially declassified in 1977. However, in 1962 the
term "reactor-grade" included any purity less than 93% Pu-239.
The plutonium for the 1962 test came from a British MAGNOX reactor
(a dual-purpose electricity/plutonium-production design), and is
suspected of being in the range 80-90% Pu-239, although this fact
remains classified. (2)

Excess quantities of Pu-239 are best burn up. Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) is suitable for power reactors.

In Summary:

• It is my view that a civil nuclear power generating industry is NOT a surrogate for military application. The two technologies are distinct.
• Nuclear proliferation treaties, nuclear safeguards and security arrangements for weapons grade material are matters for governments. I have faith in the Howard Government.
• I believe that an Australian Nuclear industry (Power generation and uranium export etc) will have a minimal if any adverse effect on world security,
• Terrorist organisations would find it almost impossible to obtain HEU and a Pu bomb would be beyond their capabilities

1 http://www.pugwah.org/publication/pb/sept2002.pdf
2 http://Tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Know_Nukes/message/13137
3 http://www.milnet.com

Together Howard and Rudd have opened up Pandorra's box. Expansion of Uranium mining is now the thin edge of the wedge. Both are ignorant and misguided they are not even considering many dangerous aspects of what they are doing. Uranium yellow cake should stay in the ground and only be used for medical and pharmeceutical means.
1 Uranium miners their families their neighbours will now be dying a slow death yes it is todays asbestos why shut down Wittenoon when you are opening up something that is far more dangerous. Reason it is a commodity that makes some people very rich. Even Gold mining is far too dangerous for local people around those mines.
2. Countries that receive uranium will them make plutonium then what will happen to that that cannot be stored and science still has not found the answer.

The Australian Institute's poll during June 2007, revealed that only 8 per cent of Australians favoured nuclear energy and 50% endorsed solar energy as their preferred energy source.

In the Los Angeles Times Newspoll conducted during July 2006, to gauge opinion on preferred energy supplies, only 6 percent chose nuclear energy.

Seems the Americans have realised that while they have more reactors than any other nation (103), they remain the largest polluters on the planet.

This is a clear message that the scientific community who gave us nuclear weapons, should now turn their talents to achieving world peace without the potential for nuclear destruction. Most global man-made catastrophic events have been the result of scientific madness and many of us have encountered along the way, educated imbeciles, uneducated geniuses and the severely gifted.

"Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to live it once again."

Nuclear proponents, have failed to advise on the potential of radiological dispersion devices (RDD's) or the "dirty bomb" to cause death and injury to hapless civilians. These types of incendiaries, combining high explosives and radioactive materials are much simpler to make than a convential nuclear bombs. In fact, ingredients may even be purchased legally.