World
 
|
Iran's nuclear progress to uranium enrichment
By Stuart Williams
AFP
TEHRAN
Petroleumworld.com 08 31 06
In a nuclear programme that began before the Islamic revolution, Iran has succeeded in enriching uranium to levels required to produce atomic fuel but has still yet to complete its first reactor.
The Islamic republic has always insisted its nuclear programme is aimed solely at producing energy for a growing population but the United States has accused the oil-rich country of using the drive as cover for weapons ambitions.
Iran has been building its first nuclear power station in the southern city of Bushehr with Russian help but completion of the facility has been put back to the end of 2007 after numerous delays.
But its main achievement so far -- and most troubling development for the West -- was an April announcement it was enriching uranium, a process that can be used both to make nuclear fuel and the core of a nuclear bomb.
Herewith is an overview of Iran's progress at its main nuclear sites as it faces a UN Security Council deadline Thursday to suspend enrichment or face possible sanctions.
MINING
- Iran has three mines for extracting uranium ore, in Saghand and Anarak in the centre as well as Gchin in the south, according to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its reserves are not known but are believed to be insufficient for an industrial-scale nuclear programme.
CONVERSION
- Raw mined uranium is then transformed into "yellowcake" and transferred to a Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) protected by a battery of anti-aircraft guns on the edge of Isfahan, the ancient capital of Persia.
- The mined uranium is transformed into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) and then into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a feed gas for the actual process of enrichment.
- Work at the vast facility had been suspended up until August 2005 as Iran pursued talks with the European Union over its nuclear programme, but Tehran then resumed the process in defiance of the Europeans.
- Iran produced 118 tonnes of UF6 by April 2006, according to the IAEA.
ENRICHMENT
- At its enrichment facility in the central city of Natanz, Iran has enriched uranium to 4.8 percent, sufficient to make nuclear fuel but well short of the 90 percent level required for a nuclear bomb.
- The facility is designed to host cascades of thousands of centrifuges. UF6 gas is fed into the centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speeds to enrich the uranium.
Natanz has a cascade of 164 centrifuges at a test plant while Iran plans to install 3,000 at an industrial enrichment facility by March 2007.
Iran is also trying to develop advanced P2 centrifuges -- devices that are capable of making weapons-grade uranium more efficiently than the P1 technology currently in use.
- The facility is particularly controversial: Iran only declared it to the IAEA after the site was exposed in 2002 by an exiled opposition group.
Iran has also admitted to buying key centrifuge components through a black market ring run by the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
POWER PLANT
- The construction of Iran's atomic power plant near the southern coastal city of Bushehr with Russian help is expected to be completed by the end of 2007 after a string of delays.
- The project was first launched by the late shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in the 1970s. It was stalled due to the 1979 Islamic revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
- In the early 1990s Iran began to search for aid to revive the project. In 1995, it found help from Russia, which has also agreed to fuel the plant, with the supply deal committing Iran to returning any spent material.
HEAVY WATER REACTOR
- Iran has been building the Arak heavy water research reactor on the outskirts of the village of Khondab. Heavy water reactors do not need enriched uranium fuel in order to function.
- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August inaugurated a heavy water production plant to supply heavy water to be used as coolant and moderator for the 40 megawatt research reactor due for completion by 2009.
- The IAEA is concerned about the proliferation risk, as the reactor could produce 8-10 kilograms (about 20 pounds) of plutonium a year, enough to make at least one nuclear bomb.
AFP 31 0735 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels