Roy Lee Oakley, an unskilled maintenance worker, was indicted on July 17 and charged with violating section 224 of the Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. § 2274). The charges were based on Oakley’s alleged attempts to export gas diffusion barriers from a dismantled uranium enrichment plant to the French. But before you go check your supply of radiation pills and duct tape, I can assure you that this is a story more out of Austin Powers than Tom Clancy.

According to the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Oakley was an unskilled worker employed by Bechtel Jacobs which had a contract to dismantle the gaseous diffusion plant that was once used to enrich uranium at the East Tennessee Technology Park outside Knoxville. One of the tasks assigned to Oakley, according to Oakley’s attorney, was to break the gas diffusion barriers and associated equipment into pieces. The gas diffusion barriers are membranes used to separate isotopes of uranium.

Oakley’s attorney claims that although Oakley thought of these broken barriers as “trash,” they might still be of interest to the French. (It is not clear whether this is because Oakley didn’t really think the barriers were trash or because he thought that the French had an unusual interest in buying trash). So Oakley did what any patriotic American would do, he called the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., and offered to sell the pieces to them. The response of the French diplomats to Oakley’s call, again in the words of Oakley’s own attorney, was that “they laughed at him.” And then apparently they called the FBI. The FBI had an agent impersonate a French diplomat to conclude the transaction (or at least enough of it to indict Oakley). Am I the only one wondering whether the FBI agent put on a cheesy French accent as part of the sting?

If the facts are as presented above, Oakley’s prospects for acquittal do not look good and indeed he deserves to be punished. However, the huffing and puffing about the vast harm that might have occurred — from various government officials and the perpetual alarmists at Arms Control Wonk — needs to be tempered somewhat.

There is a reason that the gas diffusion enrichment plant had been in mothballs for some time and was being dismantled is that it was obsolete and had been replaced by cheaper and more efficient methods of uranium enrichment. According to a typically reliable assessment from GlobalSecurity.org:

Gaseous diffusion is unlikely to be the preferred technology of a proliferator due to difficulties associated with making and maintaining a suitable barrier, large energy consumption, the requirement for procuring large quantities of specialized stage equipment, large in-process inventory requirements, and long equilibrium times.

Nor is it clear even that providing the membrane itself would enable a potential proliferator to determine how it had been manufactured. So, Oakley probably broke the law, but probably doesn’t deserve to be seen as the latest Julius Rosenberg or AQ Khan.

Permalink


Copyright © 2007 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)