Responding to Foyle ("I understand that the latest generation of nuclear power reactors are capable of utilising both U238 and U235 and do not have the ability to produce Plutonium"), even the number of the 'advanced' reactor concepts being studied involve a closed fuel cycle that involves reprocessing and thus the actual or potential separation of weapons-usable plutonium (or weapons-usable Uranium-233) from irradiated fuel or targets.
- www.energyscience.org.au.

Re pebble bed reactor designs:
- The nature of the fuel pebbles may make it somewhat more difficult to separate plutonium from irradiated fuel, but plutonium separation is certainly not impossible.
- Uranium (or depleted uranium) targets could be inserted to produce thorium targets could be inserted to produce uranium-233.
- The enriched uranium fuel could be further enriched for weapons.
- The reliance on enriched uranium will encourage the use of and perhaps be used to produce highly enriched uranium for weapons. And in China's pebble bed test reactor, 'What to do with growing piles of nuclear waste is a problem that not even this reactor can solve'. – 'Catalyst', ABC TV, Feb 2007.

And thorium reactors:
- Neutron bombardment of thorium (indirectly) produces uranium-233, a fissile material that can be used in nuclear weapons.
- The USA has successfully tested weapons using Uranium-233 cores, and India may have investigated the military use of Thorium/Uranium-233 in addition to its civil applications.
- "Thorium (Th-232) absorbs a neutron to become Th-233 which normally decays to protactinium-233 and then U-233. The irradiated fuel can then be unloaded from the reactor, the U-233 separated and fed back into another reactor as part of a closed fuel cycle." – World Nuclear Association, 2006.
- 'No thorium system would negate proliferation risks altogether." – Friedman, John S., 1997, 'More power to thorium?', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 53, No.5, September/October; Feiveson, 2001.

My two posts here invite the attention of RPG, Shadow Minister and Daviy.
Japan attempted several negotiated settlements during and late in the war, mostly through Russia and its Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Secretly agreed terms of the Potsdam terms of surrender required Russia to declare war on Japan within months of the Axis defeat in Europe. In addition, the Japanese failed to appreciate the continuing Russian hostility and imperative for revenge over defeat in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War and the invasion by Japan of Siberia at the outbreak of WWl at the behest of the Allies. Molotov personally informed the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow, Naotake Sato, that Russia declared a state of war between their respectve countries as of 9th August 1945. Russian troops by this time had already entered Manchuria. [Herbert Feis, CONTEST OVER JAPAN] The very first attempt at a peace settlement was suggested by Marquis Koichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and supreme confidant of the Emperor, before the fall of Singapore! [Lester Brooks, BEHIND JAPAN'S SURRENDER ch.10] At no time before the deployment of the bombs did Japan accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The terms set out for cessation of hostilities by Japan were, at that time and at any time previously, unacceptable to the Allies.
Actually, Japan had a dread of Russian occupation, cognisant as it was of the brutality meted out to the Germans when Russia invaded Germany itself and when Russian armour defeated all before it in dispossessing Japan of Northern China. It preferred by far an occupation by the western Allies.
Nor did the Allies wish Russia to invade the home islands of Japan. The administrative nightmare of a divided occupation of Berlin and Germany was a significant factor in preventing Russia from another
similar occupation. The Allied plans for the rehabilitation of Japan were diametrically opposed to those that could be forseen in any Russian plans. It was a given that the latter would execute the Emperor Hirohito for war crimes.

Continued...........
Japan's documentary evidence of the attempted surrender of July 29 is too selective and too simplistic to give a true and accurate representation of the circumstances. Absolutely nothing, whether political or military in these particularly turbulent times, is susceptible of a simple explanation. The so-called attempt to surrender was in fact a Japanese reaction to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. First news of the terms reached Japan on July 26. On July 28 Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki declared that the cabinet would "mokusatsu" that document. Hizatsune Sakomizu, chief cabinet secretary said he intended to convey the meaning of "no comment" but the subtlety of the Japanese language spread the meaning to "treat with silent contempt" or "to ignore". And this was how the Japanese English language press interpreted it in their headlines. On this basis, on the rejection of the Potsdam Declaration's terms by Japan, President Harry Truman, under immense pressure to end the war at any cost and to save thousands of American lives should an invasion be required of the Japanese home islands, gave the go-ahead for the deployment of the nuclear bombs. [Brooks, ch 12]
I repeat, Absolutely nothing, whether political or military in these particularly turbulent times, is susceptible of a simple explanation. To declare Japan already beaten into submission is a simplistic single factor in a multitude of factors that bear on the events that ensued. Strict control of these events up to and during the occupation was necessary for a unified Japan to suffer a benign administration and rehabilitation.