[cdn-nucl-l] This can't be good...

[Adam Gordon McLean <mclean@ecf.utoronto.ca>]

Found at http://in.news.yahoo.com/010221/20/kpxi.html.  It's no wonder the
public confuses nuclear energy with nuclear weapons when the people
reporting experiments in giant nuclear explosives are from the 'Institute
for Energy and Environmenal Research'...

	Adam

Wednesday February 21, 3:00 PM

US, Russia jointly building fusion bomb
Washington, Feb 21 (PTI) The US and Russia are jointly working on building
a pure fusion bomb hundred times more powerful than hydrogen bombs. 
Experiments are being jointly conducted at American Sandia National
Laboratory in New Mexico and Russian Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Hisham Zerriffi, Project Scientist at Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research (IEER) and Arjun Makhijani, President of IEER,
said. 

"Hydrogen bomb is set off by a fission trigger whereas for a pure fusion
bomb, there is no such trigger and no minimum critical mass is needed.
Pure fusion weapons could be made with very low yields and would not
produce fallout, blurring distinction between conventional and nuclear
explosives. Yet lethality of such weapons would still be great," the two
scientists said. 

"Though the scientific feasibility of pure fusion weapons has yet to be
proven, research on pure fusion explosions sends a dangerous signal about
the intent of nuclear weapon powers," they said. 

Referring to India, they said, "India's refusal to sign CTBT was, in part,
a reaction to this type of research by nuclear weapon states. In turn, its
decision to conduct underground nuclear tests was partly related to its
conclusion that CTBT had changed from a non-discriminatory instrument
designed to promote both non-proliferation and disarmament into a tool for
non-proliferation alone. Furthermore, some fusion research appears to
violate CTBT." PTI TVP KM SNS JW PTI NNNN 


ZCZC .WASH