DESPITE the fact that the US government is more paranoid than a crack addict who thinks he is being watched by airbourne microbes, the administration thinks it might be a good idea to flog nuclear technology to the third world.

Yep, the same government which fills the world with fear of what might happen when terrorists get their paws on nuclear material has plans to make a fortune bringing the technology to unstable regions.

The Bush administration has allocated $20 million in its 2009 budget toward the US Department of Energy's efforts to design nuclear power plants in the 250-to-500 megawatt range.

The mini nuclear plants are to be built in the US, but also in 21 other countries.

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Daniel Ingersoll of GNEP and the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory told New Scientist that the plants will be deployed in a responsible way that is safe and secure and offers the lowest possible risk for proliferation. So that is all right then.

Countries will have to promise on their mother's grave that they will only use nuclear power for civilian purposes. There can be none of that naughty uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities that can be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Not surprisingly the move has scared the willies out of the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.

Elena Sokova said there was no such thing as a proliferation-proof reactor and it was a doddle to turn fuel into the plutonium needed to make a nuclear bomb.

There is also the small mater that the design means that spent fuel has to be stored on site at a plant for several years before radiation levels are low enough for shipping. This would just be the time when those naughty terrorists might half inch it and build a dirty bomb.

L'INQ
New Scientist