"They are only enriching the uranium to about 4% purity, they would need to clean it up much more (80% or higher) if they wanted to build a bomb."
But once you have reactor grade uranium, you can run the reactor for a while, then process the fuel to extract plutonium.
Plutonium extraction is done by chemical processes, not isotope separation.
Remember the North Koreans?
They seemed willing to shut down their reactor after it had been running and cut a deal with Slick Willie for fuel oil.
They needed to let the reactor fuel cool off before they could try and process it to extract the plutonium. The really short lived stuff is the real danger, so let it dissipate to a lower level to simplify handing. We do the exact same thing.
Once they have an up and running reactor blowing the thing up produces a host of contamination problems.
But once you have reactor grade uranium, you can run the reactor for a while, then process the fuel to extract plutonium.
Plutonium extraction is done by chemical processes, not isotope separation.
Remember the North Koreans?
They seemed willing to shut down their reactor after it had been running and cut a deal with Slick Willie for fuel oil.
They needed to let the reactor fuel cool off before they could try and process it to extract the plutonium. The really short lived stuff is the real danger, so let it dissipate to a lower level to simplify handing. We do the exact same thing.
Once they have an up and running reactor blowing the thing up produces a host of contamination problems.