And yet… .that slight difference is what enables them to enrich their uranium supply with a centrifuge…
Uranium hexaflouride only becomes a gas at 56C or 133F. At room temperature it’s actually a white solid. The downside of that is that humid air can cause it to decompose into uranyl flouride and hydrogen flouride, neither of which plays nice with human flesh (among other things). You’ll probably want to keep all of that stuff chill to avoid it vaporizing and causing other problems, but at least as either a solid or liquid it will be easier to keep in a container.
Reminds me of Derek Lowe’s blog, “Things I Won’t Work With”. He’s had a lot to say about fluorine. Here’s one:
The latest addition to the long list of chemicals that I never hope to encounter takes us back to the wonderful world of fluorine chemistry. I’m always struck by how much work has taken place in that field, how long ago some of it was first done, and how many violently hideous compounds have been carefully studied.
< snip >
And yes, what happens next is just what you think happens: you run a mixture of oxygen and fluorine through a 700-degree-heating block. “Oh, no you don’t,” is the common reaction of most chemists to that proposal, “. . .not unless I’m at least a mile away, two miles if I’m downwind.” This, folks, is the bracingly direct route to preparing dioxygen difluoride, often referred to in the literature by its evocative formula of FOOF. - SOURCE
Axios with a really good article on the reports from Israeli intelligence that have been coming out. Obviously, a far more professional and cautious assessment than we got from Trump and his team.
Yes, it’s critical to how we separate the different isotopes. But the difference in volume/mass is almost nothing, and for the discussion of spiriting away the material that’s what matters.
In the end, you could literally take it away in a minivan, +/- 50% of the volume stated by @pulykamell
I love that series! As someone who has to work with safety training and rules in some fairly dangerous chemistry labs, I learned a lot. I also learned chemists didn’t used to live very long.
A thought: Is it possible that the truck activity outside of Fordow was actually moving material and/or equipment into the facility? All of their other facilities were getting hammered by Israel, and that’s the one place that Israel couldn’t touch. If they didn’t know Trump was about to get involved, it might make sense to put more stuff there.
That certainly makes some sense but Iran knows Fordo is on the target list. It may be resilient but still a target. Also, all your eggs in one basket.
If they had 800 kilos of enriched uranium (give or take) and need 50 kilos for a bomb (give or take) better to scatter it all to 16 random locations. Even if some get destroyed they’d almost certainly still have some left.
I read a few reports about an intelligence assessment that suggested exactly that and even provided some intercepted communications as evidence, but given how perfectly that lines up with what I’d want to hear, I’m dismissing it as wishful thinking until more solid evidence arises.
Given the inherent uncertainty in things like this, that’s the safest approach to take in any breaking news event. If nothing else, it could easily be deliberate misinformation
Not to mention the destruction of most of their rocket launchers capable of hitting Israel, as well as their capacity to produce more.
Also, according to the link provided, Fordow - the one site that Israel actually needed help with - is the one where significant damage was done by the US strike specifically. It’s also the site where the big bunker busters were dropped, so that makes sense.
I think the last two posters are conflating all the stuff the Israelis have accomplished with the small stuff the USA has accomplished with their one raid.
I’m not here to argue the merits of either. But they are distinct.
I still disagree that destroying the one site that was targeted is “very little”. And we were already involved in the conflict. It’s not like we made a new enemy.
I thought it was known at the time that we didn’t even try to go after the tunnels under Natanz and Isfahan.
Seems like the 3 revelations in the article are:
-US officials do believe that the strikes on Fordow did actually destroy it.
-A lot of the enriched uranium was at Isfahan, so it should still be there (maybe this was already known)
-Apparently there actually was a plan to take out all of the tunnels including an additional 3 sites, but Trump didn’t go for it. Article is a bit murky but I guess the idea was to just spend days dropping bunker busters over and over again until you get deep enough.
There was exactly one site that Israel publically identified as top tough a nut to crack and asked America for help with. According to this article, the American strike destroyed that site.