The Dreadful Alchemist

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In the chest of every real scientist beats the heart of an alchemist dreaming of converting base metals into gold, but even the wonders of modern technology have not managed to produce gold through transmutation.

The closest resemblance is turning cheap, inexpensive uranium into precious, almost priceless, weapon grade plutonium. To date, this has been carried out only by a small number of states using nuclear reactors and deploying complicated chemical processes to extract the plutonium product. Strict safeguards are implemented to monitor production of fissile materials — plutonium and high enriched uranium — to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The dreadful alchemist has devised a method to transmute thorium into uranium-233, a fissile material that is not closely watched. The process can be carried out in a clandestine facility, readily disguised as regular chemical laboratory. With this material making an atomic bomb is as easy as lighting a fire, a fire that might engulf our entire planet.

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