Deborah MacKenzie in NewScientist (19 May 2018, paywall) meditates briefly on the damage done to democracy by President Trump’s decision to abrogate the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) and then reports on the technology under development which would permit the detection of cheating by any nation that is being monitored:
Load monitors being developed at Oak Ridge would let the IAEA measure how fast uranium enters and leaves the enrichment process, says [Robert Goldston at Princeton University]. Tools being developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, automatically measure the mass in cylinders of material entering and leaving the plant. Together, these could keep tabs on all the uranium passing through enrichment. Cameras with pattern recognition focused on pipework and detectors watching for unusual neutrons, gamma rays or chemical release could also reveal illicit changes to the enrichment process.
All this can be made tamper-proof using technologies the IAEA has already developed for monitoring plants that store or reprocess spent nuclear fuel, ranging from paint or welds that reveal when monitoring equipment has been opened, to backup electrical power that cannot be unplugged. Data would be sent securely to the IAEA. Anything unusual could trigger an “unannounced access” inspection.
Although the technology isn’t quite ready yet, the 2031 JCPOA deadline would give the IAEA time to put a stringent monitoring regime based on these devices in place, says Goldston. But if the deal collapses, Iran will at best go back to the infrequent monitoring that allowed it to work on a bomb before – and will have little incentive to trust international promises again.
Along with the damage done to our reputation by President Trump’s moronic decision, he has also lost an opportunity. These technologies would greatly increase our chances of detecting cheating, yes? With them in place, if Iran did cheat, we could have caught them at it, broadcast it to the world, and thereby damage their government system’s reputation.
Another opportunity thrown to the winds by an idiot who flapped his mouth and thereby wrecks his nation, and his staff, who are far too immature and self-important to be aware of how this could have worked out.
