Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Three Words I Wasn't Aware Existed

"Mexican Nuclear Material".  As in the highly enriched fissile uranium stuff.  Mexico has it.  Luckily, seeing as how that might be a problem, Obama, at his nuclear non-proliferation summit this week, has talked Mexican President Felipe Calderon into turning the uranium back into lower-grade stuff used for reactors instead.  The deal effectively gets rid of the material.
In a statement at the Nuclear Security Summit convened by President Obama, the White House said the highly enriched uranium fuel at the reactor would be converted to low enriched uranium, which would eliminate all highly enriched uranium in Mexico.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will oversee the project, according to the statement.

In the statement, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said the agreement contributes to reducing the risk of nuclear materials such as highly enriched uranium being sold illegally and possibly ending up in the hands of terrorists.

The agreement follows announcements Monday by Ukraine saying it would get rid of its highly enriched uranium and Canada saying it will send highly enriched uranium from an Ontario power plant to the United States to be converted into another form.
Now granted, there's still tons of highly enriched uranium out there and you just don't need much of that to make a nuclear weapon   The good news is President Obama is making solid gains at getting rid of that material in a responsible way (instead of say, invading Mexico.)

Nice to see Obama on the ball on this matter.

No comments:

Related Posts with Thumbnails