By Samuel M. Hickey According to the Critical Issues poll done by the University of Maryland, a large majority of Americans across the political spectrum believe that Iran possesses nuclear weapons. It does NOT. Iran conducts nuclear research, contrary to its international commitments, into technologies with weapons applications, but it has not yet taken steps […]
Op-ed: What’s Iran’s nuclear deal?
Research Analyst Samuel Hickey co-authored an article for War on the Rocks discussing the current status of Iran’s nuclear program and the prospects for a return to the negotiating table under the new regime. “President Joe Biden’s much-discussed plans to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal are off to a bad start. After six rounds, indirect […]
Iran’s Nuclear Deal Works
Research Analyst Samuel Hickey was interviewed on Arab Talk, a San Francisco radio broadcast focusing on events in the Middle East, where he spoke about his recent article, “How Iran’s Research Reactors Prove the Nuclear Deal is Still Working,” which appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Fact Sheet: The Civilian and Military Characteristics of Plutonium
Nuclear weapons require fissile materials, that is certain isotopes of uranium and plutonium, to sustain explosive fission chain reactions. Plutonium for weapons is normally obtained by reprocessing. Reprocessing is the separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium, often in the spent fuel from a nuclear reactor. The process was originally developed in the United States as […]
Fact Sheet: Uranium Enrichment: For Peace or for Weapons
Centrifuge technology is at the heart of the enrichment process, and the line between its uses for civilian and military purposes is hard to distinguish. Once a country has mastered this technology, the centrifuges can be reconfigured into cascades to either produce fuel for an electricity-generating nuclear reactor or the 25 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium […]
