Australian scientists have made a
major breakthrough in uranium enrichment.
They expect that nuclear fuel costs will be cut by 30%, and I don't think that is overly optimistic.
More below...
Basically they've figured out a way to to separate U-235 from U-238 by using lasers instead of centrifuges. Laser light of a specific frequency gives an electrical charge to the U-235 atoms and then they can be seperated with a charged device.
They say it is a very complex process, but it sounds incredibly simple. You just have to know the frequency of laser light to make it work.
Already, General Electric has licensed the technology and will build the first commercial plant using the process in the US.
There are a couple of ramifications of this technology.
1) Nuclear power will be a lot cheaper. Power producers will have greater incentive to build nuclear plants since there is greater potential for return, even though issues such as waste disposal have not been solved.
2) Weapons grade material will be MUCH easier to produce. Centrifuge and diffusion are both multi-pass technologies. Each pass creates more pure material. It takes many passes to create weapons grade material. The laser approach is a single pass technology and produces 100% U-235.
The production of weapons grade material is currently the single greatest challenge in creating a nuclear device. If you can produce the material, you can produce a bomb.
I just hope this technology doesn't fall into the wrong hands.