Uranium Enrichment and the Iran Deal

Nobody ever said that John Kerry was smart. It now looks like he got snookered by Iran. Part of the agreement hinges on Iran stopping enrichment of uranium but not eliminating their stockpiles of partially enriched uranium. The chart below, taken from a report by the American Enterprise Institute, show the amount of time and effort required to refine uranium from bulk ore to weapons grade (90%) As you can see, most of the time is spent getting to the 5% level. Once you are there, it takes a relatively short time to get to the higher concentrations. In short, if Iran does not get rid of their stocks of 5% and 20% uranium, they can put together enough for a bomb in a very short period of time.

And all bets are off if they only want to make a dirty bomb.

The lesson here is don't leave technical details to politicians.