uranium

Fluorine production was a proxy for uranium production if the only use for fluorine was for uranium production.

The irradiation would then make uranium-233 in lieu of uranium-232, which can be used in nuclear weapons to make thorium into a dual purpose fuel.

For that reactor, the fuel is a mix of plutonium isotopes which can't be used for bombs and are much more difficult to purify than natural uranium ore.

However once you have enriched enough uranium to create an operating reactor, its spent fuel will contain a few percent Plutonium.

All remaining uranium oxide enriched to between 5% and 20% will be fabricated into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).

The article doesn't say, but because molten salt reactors use liquid fuel, they release the radioactive xenon gas produced by uranium fission.

The excess quantities are to be sold based on international prices and delivered to the international buyer in return for natural uranium delivered to Iran, or are to be down-blended to natural uranium level.

Or just put a bunch of uranium in the same room...

One of projects that I consult on involves sorting of gravel from inactive uranium mines.

If Iran abides by the entire agreement, they will come out the other end with working centrifuges (and therefore the ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade).

Just imagine how useful some Moon uranium would be!

The real reason to be interested in thorium is that it has reduced proliferation concern and also thorium is available in places where uranium is rare (India).

A much more important example of this than "martian potatoes" is uranium enrichment.

On the other hand, separating that same fuel into 3000 kg of partially-enriched (1.4% U235) uranium and 7000 kg of partially-depleted (0.4% U235) uranium only takes 1790 kg of "Separative work units", even though the increased concentration of U235 means that "half the U238 has been eliminated".

As a "code word" for Uranium-235 they took the last digit from 92 and the last digit from 235 and referred to it as 2+5 = 25 Same with plutonium-239 which has 94 protons and 239 protons + neutrons.

I like the sodium fast reactor: low pressure, moderate temperature, sodium is dirt cheap, high burn-up of non-uranium/plutonium products ("waste"), and plutonium need never be separated from other reaction products.

Uranium enrichment is actually a physical rather than nuclear process, and thus it cannot produce other elements such as Plutonium.

I've vaguely heard before that some nations (like North Korea) have difficulty building nuclear bombs because it's hard to enrich Uranium.

It contains a very good summary of how Iran started enriching Uranium, where they acquired the technology to build the centrifuges, and how most countries that signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons attempted to reason with Iran to stop enriching Uranium.