A Better Iran Deal; or, Using Innovation to Change the Rules of the Game

Technology can change more than you think.

by Rod D. Martin
July 14, 2015

There is a better Iran deal we should be making.

This is not a political statement per se. It’s an example of technology solving intractable problems; or in this case, at least of technology revealing the truth of a situation. In either case, innovation could completely change the terms of what otherwise seems a long, inevitable slide toward something awful.

Iran claims it needs nuclear power. That may seem counterintuitive: Iran is one of the world’s leading oil producers and has immense reserves of natural gas. Still, those are resources it wants to export for cash, not burn at home.

To be fair, Iran started its nuclear power program in the 1960s, under the Shah. The United States helped it, under Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative.

Before the Ayatollahs, that made sense. Maybe it still does.

There’s a way to find out.

Throughout the world, commercial nuclear plants use uranium. This is because both the United States and the Soviet Union developed the tec…