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One thing is that is easy to develop an inefficient atomic bomb. It is harder to develop one small enough to be delivered and/or thermonuclear bomb. Also, acqu

One thing is that is easy to develop an inefficient atomic bomb. It is harder to develop one small enough to be delivered and/or thermonuclear bomb. Also, acquiring the material has always been the hard part. It requires nuclear reactors then reprocessing the waste to get plutonium. Or enriching uranium to get U-235. There is term, nuclear latency, for countries that could easily develop nuclear weapons. Some identified ones are Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Australia, Argentina, South Korea, and Taiwan. Japan is special case with 50 tons of plutonium.

Vecr 4y ago
How about Canada? At one point I'm pretty sure they could have done it quickly, but have they lost capability?
- jszymborski 4y ago
  Canada is the second largest supplier of Uranium if my memory serves me. It also has few CANDU reactors. If the article is correct in that a couple of physics grad students could make a design in the 60s that could be made in an average machine shop, im sure its the case Canada retains the ability. Not sure our economy wouldnt collapse as a result though.
  - southernplaces7 4y ago
    Canada could very easily produce nuclear weapons, even at scale, if it wanted to. The U.S. would likely even help them in doing so if the government requested the assistance. As you say, it's one of the worlds main suppliers of uranium, already possesses highly advanced nuclear technology and facilities, and has the institutional know-how to be a nuclear power with low relative cost and minimal external interference. If even South Africa made and (supposedly, see below) tested a nuclear weapon way back in the 70's, many countries today and especially Canada could do so with little economic or technical difficulty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident
- ianburrell 4y ago
  They were in the original list I looked at but edited cause was getting long.
elzbardico 4y ago
In south america brazil is a lot closer than Argentina, as Brazil managed to develop its enrichment process before argentina. https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-brazil-spun-the-atom https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-brazil-spun-the-atom

Vecr 4y ago

How about Canada? At one point I'm pretty sure they could have done it quickly, but have they lost capability?

jszymborski 4y ago
Canada is the second largest supplier of Uranium if my memory serves me. It also has few CANDU reactors. If the article is correct in that a couple of physics grad students could make a design in the 60s that could be made in an average machine shop, im sure its the case Canada retains the ability. Not sure our economy wouldnt collapse as a result though.
- southernplaces7 4y ago
  Canada could very easily produce nuclear weapons, even at scale, if it wanted to. The U.S. would likely even help them in doing so if the government requested the assistance. As you say, it's one of the worlds main suppliers of uranium, already possesses highly advanced nuclear technology and facilities, and has the institutional know-how to be a nuclear power with low relative cost and minimal external interference. If even South Africa made and (supposedly, see below) tested a nuclear weapon way back in the 70's, many countries today and especially Canada could do so with little economic or technical difficulty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident
ianburrell 4y ago
They were in the original list I looked at but edited cause was getting long.

elzbardico 4y ago

In south america brazil is a lot closer than Argentina, as Brazil managed to develop its enrichment process before argentina. https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-brazil-spun-the-atom https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-brazil-spun-the-atom