AHC: Belgian nuclear program

BTW Plutonium IS a natuarally occuring element.

From wikipedia: Trace amounts of at least three plutonium isotopes (plutonium-238, 239, and 244) can be found in nature. Small traces of plutonium-239, a few parts per trillion, and its decay products are naturally found in some concentrated ores of uranium,[43] such as the natural nuclear fission reactor in Oklo, Gabon.[44] The ratio of plutonium-239 to uranium at the Cigar Lake Mine uranium deposit ranges from 2.4 × 10−12 to 44 × 10−12.[45] Even smaller amounts of primordial plutonium-244 occur naturally due to its relatively long half-life of about 80 million years.[

It occurs only in microscopic quantities, which is the point he was trying to make.
 
Petten Nuclear Reactor in North-Holland up untill 2005 used high enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons. It has since changed into using low enriched uranium, which cannot be used for that purpose.

it uses enriched uranium, it does not create it(it gets the enriched uranium from France and Russia, where thye also send the used uranium to be recycled. The raw materials come from kazachstan). A lot of that enriched Uranium is send to Borselle nuclear reactor in Zeeland too.

Petten is mostly used to create radioactive isotopes used by hospitals(radiation therapy). Its produces 1/3rd of the worlds medical isotopes.

The Netherlands never had any means to create nuclear weapons.
The Netherlands has the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon (the Pakistani did steal the knowledge for their nuke from us after all), but the Netherlands never had a reason to actualy try to build one. We had the American* nuclear weapons to protects us (and we even have a couple of American nukes lying around here somewhere, although noone ever admitted that).

*and in theory our other allies like the British and maybe the French.
 
Same as Canada...

As I understand it, the US, Canada and the UK all had access to the technical information about the Manhattan Project in 1945. The US and the UK turned that into Nuclear Weapons of their own, the Canadians didn't. The general feeling was that as long as the US was willing to treat an attack on Canadian Soil as an attack on their own, why spend the money. The UK and France had been Great Powers and remained so (just not Superpowers), but I think in the 1950s, the GNP of the Western European Powers had a *huge* drop from the UK/France to whatever was #3 (and the Germans weren't going to be *let* to build them even once they got to #3). By the time countries like Benelux were ready to build nukes of their own, NATO was in full force and the US President (and UK PM and probably the French President) would have treated Nuclear missiles into Belgium as if they were headed toward their own capital cities...
 
Petten Nuclear Reactor in North-Holland up untill 2005 used high enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons. It has since changed into using low enriched uranium, which cannot be used for that purpose.

it uses enriched uranium, it does not create it(it gets the enriched uranium from France and Russia, where thye also send the used uranium to be recycled. The raw materials come from kazachstan). A lot of that enriched Uranium is send to Borselle nuclear reactor in Zeeland too.

Petten is mostly used to create radioactive isotopes used by hospitals(radiation therapy). Its produces 1/3rd of the worlds medical isotopes.

The Netherlands never had any means to create nuclear weapons.

The Netherlands is a shareholder in URENCO, which operates nuclear fuel enrichment facilities for European power reactors. They have a centrifugal enrichment plant at Almelo. That's pretty close to turnkey - they'd need to set up their own UF6 conversion and metal fabrication facilities and other infrastructure, and do some modifications to the plant, but they have what is by far the most difficult part of a bomb program ready.
 
The Netherlands has the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon (the Pakistani did steal the knowledge for their nuke from us after all), but the Netherlands never had a reason to actualy try to build one. We had the American* nuclear weapons to protects us (and we even have a couple of American nukes lying around here somewhere, although noone ever admitted that).

*and in theory our other allies like the British and maybe the French.

Actually its quite known we have US nukes stored in Volkel airbase, B61 nuclear warheads deliverable by F-16. Its part of our NATO nuclear weapons sharing program. Belgium, Italy, Germany and Turkey have US nuclear boms stored as well.
 
Actually its quite known we have US nukes stored in Volkel airbase, B61 nuclear warheads deliverable by F-16. Its part of our NATO nuclear weapons sharing program. Belgium, Italy, Germany and Turkey have US nuclear boms stored as well.
True, but noone will ever admit it. It's a public secret.
 
The Netherlands is a shareholder in URENCO, which operates nuclear fuel enrichment facilities for European power reactors. They have a centrifugal enrichment plant at Almelo. That's pretty close to turnkey - they'd need to set up their own UF6 conversion and metal fabrication facilities and other infrastructure, and do some modifications to the plant, but they have what is by far the most difficult part of a bomb program ready.

The uranium enriched there is no way near weapons grade. They only make it like 5% U-235, while weapons grade needs 85% U-235. They need to set up a whole lot more centrifuges in order to make useful U-235.
 
The uranium enriched there is no way near weapons grade. They only make it like 5% U-235, while weapons grade needs 85% U-235. They need to set up a whole lot more centrifuges in order to make useful U-235.

They have enough centrifuges to produce 85%+ U-235, they just need to connect them up differently. (Well, it's more complicated than that, but that's the rough idea.) That's why I said they'd need to make some modifications.
 
The OP here sez "early 20th Century". I cannot see Belgium carrying out a power or weapons program on its own pre 1940. ...but I could see, with a few grams of fairy dust, a allied Belgium and France carrying out quite a bit of research in the 1930s. Some serious financial backing for the research from the 1920s and at least a experiment reactor could be in place before 1940. There are a awful lot of hurdles between a test pile in 1938 and a power reactor, a breeder reactor for Plutonium, and any sort of Uranium bomb. Still with the proper finances, and a few correct decisions in research plans the Franco/Belgian project could be way too close by 1940. Getting that material out of France in June 1940 would have priority over about everything else, the Engima decryption workers, the gold reserves, the first line aircraft, whatever. One presumes the French documents, physicists, and salvaged equipment would first move to Algeria. What might happen after that is anyones guesss. Mine is a temporary facility in Algeria & then something permanent in a 'safer' location. A alternative is a secret protocol between Vichy France and the US. That would kick off something like the Manhatten Project, but in 1941 7 with 75% of the research done. Anyone want to discuss a Uranium bomb on Berlin in August 1943?
 
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