Laser advance may increase spread of nuclear bomb

Scientists have long sought easier ways to create the costly material known as enriched uranium - the fuel of nuclear reactors and bombs, at this time produced only in giant industrial plants one idea, a half-century old, has been to do it through nothing more substantial than lasers and their rays of concentrated light this approach have forever proved too expensive and difficult for anything but laboratory experimentation.

In a little-known effort, General Electric have successfully tested laser enrichment for two years and is seeking permission beginning the US government to build a $US1 billion ($960 million) plant that would make reactor fuel by the tone so as to might be good news for the nuclear industry, but critics fear so as to if the work succeeds and the secret gets out, rogue states and terrorists could create bomb fuel in much smaller plants that are difficult to detect.

Iran has already succeeded with laser enrichment in the lab, as well as nuclear experts worry that GE's accomplishment might inspire Tehran to make a plant easily hidden from the world's eyes, Backers of the laser plan praise the technology as a hand-out for a world increasingly wary of fossil fuels to produce greenhouse gases.