gwern comments on Open thread, November 2011 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 02 November 2011 06:19PM

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Comment author: gwern 22 November 2011 10:07:29PM 2 points [-]

Well, one issue is that it becomes easier for countries to actually get nukes once the whole technology is known. One needs to start with less uranium and needs to refine it less.

Yes, but how much does this help? There are multiple methods available of varying sophistication/engineering complexity (thermal easy, laser hard); a factor of 6 surely helps, but any of the methods works if you're just willing to run the ore or gas through enough times.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 23 November 2011 12:29:23AM -1 points [-]

That's a good point. So the only advantage comes from not needing as much uranium ore to start with and since uranium ore is easy to get already that's not a major issue.