“…allowing countries to build bombs with smaller amounts of plutonium or uranium.”
posted at 1:21 pm on March 9, 2017 by John Sexton
A United Nations report released this month concludes that a North Korean front company, Green Pine Association Corp., has been trying to sell lithium-6 online. From the Wall Street Journal:
Lithium-6 can be used to produce tritium, which is used to flood neutrons into a nuclear device and magnify the explosive power of nuclear detonations, allowing countries to build bombs with smaller amounts of plutonium or uranium, nuclear experts said. These smaller devices can be affixed to intercontinental ballistic missiles. “Lithium-6 is ideal, not only for making tritium for boosting fission devices, but also for directly fueling advanced weapons—including thermonuclear bombs,” said Henry Sokolski, a former Pentagon official who heads the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington think tank.
