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I was of the understanding that the technical challenges associated with closing the fuel cycle had not been overcome yet?
Incidentally, I have just finished reading a book about South Africa's covert nuclear program (at the end of the apartheid era) I highly recommend it. The basic thrust of the investigation is that SA was for a time at the forefront of advanced nuclear weapon development with full knowledge of the other nuclear club members. The case is fairly convincingly made that they were successful in their quest to make fusion devices that didn't require a fissile trigger. Sam Cohen has previously acknowledged that the Soviets had done exactly the same thing. Without getting in to a discussion over the military implications, it would revolutionize the energy industry if it was ever let into the civilian domain. I suppose what it would imply to the global power balance would ensure that it is unlikely to ever happen.
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