KentuckyFC writes “One of the biggest problems in nuclear proliferation is verifying that countries are not secretly transferring fissile material by taking it out of reactors and selling it. Now a group of US scientists say they’ve developed a machine that can remotely detect whether a reactor has been switched on and off by detecting the antineutrinos produced by nuclear reactions. The detector is about the size of a automobile engine and is designed to be left near a reactor to record data. The group has been testing a prototype at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Southern California and says it works well (abstract). Now its up to the International Atomic Energy Authority in Vienna to decide whether to deploy the new machine.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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