When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Germany

Is Building A Nuclear Bomb About To Get Way Easier?

Ever wonder why rogue nations don't have nuclear capabilities yet? Because building atomic weapons has remained an enormously complicated and expensive process. A new laser-based enrichment technique could change all that.

French nuclear test in the Pacific (James Vaughan)
French nuclear test in the Pacific (James Vaughan)

*NEWSBITES

Largely unnoticed, over the past few years a new technique for the enrichment of uranium has been developed – the "Silex" laser-based method. Techniques widely used now are the gaseous diffusion and gas centrifuge techniques.

Developed by Australian scientists, Silex stands for "Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation." Although most details about the method are top secret, what is known is that a CO2 laser is used to irradiate uranium hexafluoride gas, which excites 235UF6 molecules. To produce both civil nuclear power and military warheads, the U-235 isotope in uranium must be beefed up or "enriched."

According to experts, the Silex enrichment method could be 16 times more efficient then the centrifuge technique.

Global Laser Enrichment, a subsidiary of GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, is planning to build the first commercial Silex facility in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is awaiting permission from relevant authorities. Global Laser expects to receive the green light some time this year.

Laser enrichment is controversial among experts because it lowers the technical hurdles needed to build atomic weapons and could spur proliferation of weapons-grade material. Because the laser enrichment technique is less elaborate than the centrifuge method it does not require as large a facility – in fact, according to Global Laser Enrichment, a Silex facility takes up 75% less volume than a comparable centrifugal one.

This makes detection of secret facilities by spy satellites a much greater challenge. And because the laser method uses substantially less energy, the thermal clues that can give away the presence of a secret facility are harder to pinpoint.

The lower cost of the Silex method for enriching the uranium used in fuel rods is in itself a huge selling point, says American physicist Francis Slakey of Georgetown University in Washington D.C. He calculates that costs would be halved, which would mean that the average American's monthly electricity bill could be lower by 66 cents assuming that savings were passed on to consumers.

However, professional associations of both American and German physicists have warned of the dangers of unchecked use of the Silex method. Professor Wolfgang Sander, president of the German Physical Society (DPG), said that "the risks tied to the Silex method must be examined more closely. Making the technology to produce nuclear weapons widely available has to be avoided under all circumstances."

Read the full story in German by Norbert Lossau

Photo - James Vaughan

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest