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A comment on France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal. Parent comment

Re:France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia ... by sudosysgen on Friday September 17, 2021 @09:06PM (#28572640)
These submarines have 95% enrichment fuel. You only need ~10kg to make a high yield weapon with the right design.

You're going to get multiple weapons with the fuel stored in a single submarine.

Cruise missiles are vulnerable. They can be intercepted and shot down, and they give your position away. Low reward, high risk. Nuclear deterrence can certainly be worth it.

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Re:France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia ... by fspeech on Friday September 17, 2021 @09:18PM (#28572700)
I doubt they will use 95% uranium. [This guy](https://theconversation.com/how-do-nuclear-powered-submarine...) says it is about 50%. Still that is the level Iran is being sanctioned at.
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Re:France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia ... by sudosysgen on Friday September 17, 2021 @09:41PM (#28572809)
The US uses 93-97% uranium as a matter of public record.

Other countries use more weakly enriched uranium, the US and UK are the exception, so I understand the error in the article above.

See this better source ; https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/06/naval-reactors-leu/

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Re:France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia ... by fspeech on Friday September 17, 2021 @09:55PM (#28572867)
I wasn't questioning your numbers but thanks for the reference. I think they are being purposedly vague about this. Transferring weapons grade uranium would be a real threat to the NPT.
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Re:France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia ... by sudosysgen on Saturday September 18, 2021 @01:55PM (#28578003)
Well, it's pretty clear, the US is going to provide weapons grade uranium to Australia. Yes it's highly sensitive under the NPT, but the US doesn't care at all.

If the uranium had lower enrichment, it wouldn't be able to last 25 years, so it's certain that this is weapons grade.

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