<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/17/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">user</b> <<a href="mailto:user@dhp.com">user@dhp.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
... what does that mean for the balance of energy haves<br>and have nots when the major industrialized nations, under the guise of<br>the UN and IAEA, etc., can limit the use of those technologies ?</blockquote><div><br>Actually, as the article recently cited by Samantha points out, signing the NPT gives nations the freedom to perform uranium enrichment for peaceful applications (such as as power production). Iran has signed the treaty. Israel, India and Pakistan have not. Iran at this point seems to have the designs and parts for the centrifuges required to perform uranium enrichment. The problem comes down to the fact that it is a relatively small step from enriching uranium for generating electricity to producing highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
<br><br>Generally speaking until Iran runs out of oil it seems to make little economic sense for it to be building nuclear power reactors.<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Is it perhaps an unintended consequence of nuclear non-proliferation that<br>only rich, developed countries will have access to modern forms of energy<br>production ?</blockquote><div><br>Actually, if you look at the maps at [1] you can see that there are nuclear reactors all around the world including some countries that could be considered "less" developed.
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Is it perhaps _not_ an unintended consequence ? Do the US and EU dream<br>of selling electricity to arabs for petrodollars ?
</blockquote><div><br>Electricity doesn't transport well over long distances due to the transmission line losses. It is also true that countries are unlikely to rely foreign sources for a critical resource such as electricity. One can too easily end up with situations similar to the
U.S. 1970s oil shortages or the recent Ukraine/EU situation with Russian natural gas supplies.<br><br>Robert<br> <br>1. <a href="http://www.insc.anl.gov/pwrmaps/">http://www.insc.anl.gov/pwrmaps/</a><br></div><br></div>
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