{"id":94,"date":"2011-09-02T00:02:01","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T00:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pilot.stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/?p=94"},"modified":"2011-09-02T00:02:01","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T00:02:01","slug":"what-do-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-technology-leaking-a-look-at-laser-uranium-enrichment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/2011\/09\/02\/what-do-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-technology-leaking-a-look-at-laser-uranium-enrichment\/","title":{"rendered":"What do we mean when we talk about technology "leaking"? A look at laser uranium enrichment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo from Jer Kunz on Flikr.<\/p><\/div>\n

On August 20, 2011, the New York Times<\/em> ran a story, \u201cLaser advances in nuclear fuel stir terror fear<\/a>\u201d about General Electric\u2019s claim to have perfected a new way of enriching uranium, Silex, using lasers. \u00a0GE claims that the new technology, which scientists have sought to perfect for decades, would make the traditionally arduous, dirty, and dangerous process of uranium enrichment cheaper and more efficient. \u00a0They are seeking federal approval for a new $1 billion uranium separation plant just outside Wilmington, North Carolina.
\nThe story poses challenges to a science journalist: the new technology is so secret that no pictures or diagrams of it are publicly available, its designers are loath to talk about it, and the technical accomplishments involved in its development are out-of-bounds for public discussion. \u00a0All we know is that GE claims to have full confidence in its new technology and that the American Physical Society has submitted a petition \u2013 with the support of many citizens and arms control experts \u2013 asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate the risk that Silex technology would enable countries to conceal uranium plants for covert nuclear weapons programs.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> story focused on this proliferation angle. \u00a0In keeping with its longstanding tradition of hyping the Iranian nuclear threat at every opportunity, the article mentions Iran repeatedly.<\/p>\n

According to the article GE commissioned a report from three \u201cformer government officials\u201d that \u201cconcluded that the laser secrets had a low chance of leaking\u201d to other countries if the U.S. went ahead and commercialized the technology. \u00a0The opinion of the former government officials need not impress us too much since there are doubtless other \u201cformer government officials\u201d who would conclude the opposite, especially if their report was not, unlike this one, paid for by GE. \u00a0And what nuclear technology, first developed by the U.S., has not spread to other countries? \u00a0(That was a rhetorical question).<\/p>\n

Still, what is striking here is the trope of the \u201cleaking\u201d technology. \u00a0It conjures an image of a fluid escaping containment to go somewhere it should not. \u00a0If there is agency involved it belongs not to people but to the fluid secrets themselves, which have, however, a \u201clow chance of leaking.\u201d \u00a0This is an odd way to describe a development that would involve large numbers of scientists, engineers and technicians seeking to understand and replicate the new technology. A secret spreads not when a discrete packet of information travels, but when a relationship between human knowers and the world is transformed. \u00a0By casting such developments in the idiom of the circulation and containment of fluids, this way of thinking not only obscures the agency of the people who make proliferation happen, but it also mystifies what is involved in the process of proliferation. \u00a0It makes it seem as if secrets, when they do leak, spread ready-made. \u00a0However, as Kathleen Vogel argues in her work on biological weapons programs<\/a> in different countries, and as Donald MacKenzie and Graham Spinardi have argued<\/a> with reference to nuclear weapons, it takes considerable tacit knowledge to make weapons technologies work, especially if those who already have this tacit knowledge have no desire to share it with you and force you to develop it yourself.<\/p>\n

While we should surely be cautious about bringing potentially dangerous new technologies into the world, we should also think more rigorously about proliferation as a process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Hugh Gusterson is a Professor in the Anthropology Department at George Mason University. \u00a0His research focuses on the culture of nuclear weapons scientists and antinuclear activists, and about militarism and science more generally. \u00a0He is a regular columnist<\/a> for the\u00a0Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 20, 2011, the New York Times ran a story, \u201cLaser advances in nuclear fuel stir terror fear\u201d about General Electric\u2019s claim to have perfected a new way of enriching uranium, Silex, using lasers. \u00a0GE claims that the new technology, which scientists have sought to perfect for decades, would make the traditionally arduous, dirty, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9,23,26,27,29,31,36],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-agency","tag-ge","tag-iran","tag-leaking","tag-nuclear","tag-proliferation","tag-uranium-enrichment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}