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Comment by marticode | Hacker News Reader

> I don't see anything in NPT that forbids the US and UK from supplying nuclear propulsion to Australia.

And yet it's a tacit agreement among nuclear nations to not sell military nuclear equipment to non-nuclear nations (ie who don't have at least a civilian program).

Which is why North Korea for ex has never been able to buy nuclear equipment from China or Russia. So far, because now that the US has decided breaking the rule for a short term financial gain was worth it, other's will decide that they might as well help their own allies too with a few reactors.

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North Korea's Yongbon Nuclear Reactor was supplied by the Soviet Union. Russia came very close to selling North Korea a 200 MW reactor in the early 90s but the deal fell through when North Korea refused to pay. In 1994, the United States agreed to build 2 1000 MW reactors in North Korea as part of the Agreed Framework, which was only suspended after North Korea withdrew from the NPT.

There is not nor has there ever been any prohibition on providing nuclear technology and equipment to non-nuclear weapons states. In this particular case, France offered to sell Australia nuclear submarines back in 2016 and Australia decided against it, but one of their reasons for going with the French proposal was that the submarines could be converted to nuclear in the future.

> North Korea's … Reactor was supplied by the Soviet Union.

In 2000, the Swiss company ABB signed a contract to deliver not one, but two nuclear reactors to North Korea.

Here's the bit that should drain anyone of all faith in politicians: Donald Rumsfeld was an ABB board member at the time.

[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/rumsfeld-was-on-abb-board-durin...

North Korea can't buy nuclear equipment from those countries because it has withdrawn from the NPT entirely, and it doesn't have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

Does this qualify as a civilian program?

https://www.ansto.gov.au/research/facilities/opal-multi-purp...

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