Olli Heinonen, a former IAEA deputy director general and head of the safeguards department (ie chief inspector), has some thoughts about Iran's claim to have manufactured and tested its first uranium fuel rod. This is his guest blog.
In the past few days, at a time of high tension in the Gulf, Iran
announced that it had produced and tested its first fuel rod at the Tehran Research Reactor. It also claimed to have mastered the
production of nuclear plates.
My understanding is that what is being tested at the TRR is a rod designed to be used at the heavy water reactor under construction in Arak. Making assemblies of plates of the kind required to fuel the TRR itself is still some way off.
Iran has always stated that the TRR is being used to produce
radioisotopes through irradiation for industrial and medical purposes.
To operate, the reactor needs a core made of fuel assemblies, which
contain a total of 30 kg uranium enriched to 20 % U-235. Each fuel
assembly is made of thin plates, which contain uranium in form of U3O8 (uranium oxide) in aluminium cladding.
It appears from the announcement that what Iran has produced and
tested at the hot cells at the TRR is something different: a fuel rod,
which typically consists of cylindrical pellets clad in a zirconium
tube. The rod Iran claims to have made contains natural uranium, suggesting that it is intended for the IR-40 heavy water reactor at Arak, rather than for a light water nuclear power station like Bushehr, which uses rods of low enriched U-235.
This is a cause for concern as such an action is proscribed by the
United Nations Security Council due to its proliferation concerns.
Plutonium could be separated from the reactor's spent fuel. Hence
this show of ostensibly civilian nuclear progress could end up further
stoking international tensions.
Some of the Iranian news articles claim it is easy to manufacture a fuel plate after making a fuel rod. However, manufacturing processes for rods and plates are very different, each with its own challenges, and making a plate using homogeneous 20 % enriched uranium will not be straightforward. Iran has yet to demonstrate it can do this.
If everything proceeds as planned, the first real fuel assemblies can be introduced to the reactor some time next year. That is when current stocks of TRR fuel are due to run out.
The fact that Iran is still a year away from actual production of the
first fuel assembly for the TRR provides an opportunity for the P5+1 to negotiate a more comprehensive solution to address the increasing stockpiles of 3.5 % and 20 % enriched uranium.
Iran's current stock of 20 % enriched uranium should be sufficient to
provide fuel for next 4-5 years for the TRR. And there is no need for Iran to produce more 20 % enriched uranium. Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator Saeed Jalili has recently asked to re-launch nuclear talks
with the P5+1. What could the P5+1 offer which Iran currently does not
have, and what Iran could give in return?
Here's a thought: The P5+1 could provide modern, safe and secure nuclear technology, fuel for the TRR and in the longer term, a more efficient research reactor. Iran could in turn relinquish its stock of enriched uranium.
Iran and the P5+1 should also convert Iran's IR-40 heavy water reactor
under construction in Arak to a more proliferation-proof light
water research reactor. Such a reactor could use current 3.5 %
enriched uranium stock as fuel material, an approach which has recently been demonstrated to be feasible.
Olli Heinonen is now a senior fellow at the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University
Comments
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5 January 2012 11:59AM
It is Iran's incontrovertible right to develop any kind of nuclear technology that it sees fit
- Including military nuclear technology if that decision is ever taken
There are not different 'streams' of nations who are entitled to develop some technologies and some not
Either the laws and treaties are applied to all universally or none.
There is a separate international issue whereby countries such as the United States are not following their obligations and are actually in breach of the international treaties.
There is no international oversight because basically the United States is bending the international treaties to suit its own political ambitions and ends
The only reason it can do this is because 'might is right', and a large proportion of the playground would rather kowtow to the school bully rather than challenge them directly.
5 January 2012 12:46PM
Iran feel threatened and rightfully so. Israel are the most aggressive nation in the region and they have nuclear weapons, the Iranian response is completely understandable.
5 January 2012 12:53PM
Agree with the above responses. Iran has as much right to this development as Irael, UK or US
5 January 2012 1:39PM
Why? i repeat why isn't one of the big Tabloid or Newspapers posting/writing one serious/informative/analytical/investigative article on Nuclear weapons and research that Israel has?
WHY?
5 January 2012 1:42PM
Its a relief to read something about Iran's nuclear programme that seems to be authoritative.
As far as Irans civilian nuclear programme is concerned - yes they have every right to develop their own reactors.
As far as a military programme is concerned - its not so simple. In my view, given how bellicose the US and Israel are being, they would be stupid not to seek to develop nuclear weapons.
However they are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and as such they are banned from seeking to develop nuclear weapons, and they are expect to open the facilities to inspection so that the other signatories to the treaty can see that they are complying.
Israel is not a signatory, so how they get to tell anyone else to behave is beyond me. The broad assumption that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons seems to be based on the notion that 'I would if I was them'.
Indeed.
I do not understand why Iran doesnt simply withdraw from the treaty. Compliance is getting them nowhere.
5 January 2012 1:44PM
and they are expected to open their facilities to inspection
5 January 2012 1:45PM
Exactly! Iran as a sovereign country has the right to develop nuclear technolology (like the other countries in the world who have done so and are doing so) in any way they feel necessary. The P5+1 has arbitrrily given themselves the right to decide what others can do or not do, while they themselves are armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and one of them have used it on two cities killing hundreds of thosands of innocent people. They can now bully the people of the world, precisely because they have the nuclear weapons.
These powers have no legal or moral right to stop other countries from using nuclear technology. On the contrary it seems obvious (as in the case of North Korea) that, to stop the aggression and bullying of these powers, it is imperative that other countries have to develop nuclear weapons. This self-appointed over-lords can preach others on nuclear technology ONLY after they get rid of THEIR nuclear weapons. Iranian leaders have proposed that all nuclear weapons must be banned and those existing anywhere in the world must be dismantled under UN supervision. This is a principled stand and the overwhelming majority of the people of the world support it.
5 January 2012 2:04PM
Quite, why can't they make provisions to defend themselves?
Iran is not well placed, considering their neighbours military capability
Its a bit like Monopoly; The US have bought (or are openly supporting) all the surrounding countries and are supplying them with weapons to bully Iran into submission
I'm with the cheerleaders and beautiful people: World peace please...
6 January 2012 7:51AM
Thev West will go on finding excuses to further worsen its relations with Iran and prepare its public for possible military action against it.
Doing that will only play into Israel's right wing and the most fanatic of the Islamist movements thus stoking a potential fire whose repercussions will go beyond most Western expectations
.Thus in more ways than one the West isbeing railroaded into a path it may well regret: outright military confrontation withan Iran supported,here, by Islamdom.
Except for Israel that path holds no possible return to the West and may well hurt it griviously .
The whole tragedy lays in two false premises:
1-That Iranian nuclear endevours threaten both Israeli and Western security.
A patent falsehood since re Israel it will only end its nuclear regional monopoly while allowing it to retain its far superior nuclear arsenal and re the West the absurdity of the claim though enough to discard considering the impossibility of Iranian nuclear parity with the West
2-That Israel's military supremacy, via nuclear monoploy ensures its political and economic regional supremacy.
Israel may have cause to worry about loosing its, presumed, regional military supremacy while the West can do better than pursue a course that will only lead to a further deterioration of its relations with Islamdom.
6 January 2012 4:15PM
Are we now to believe Iran is building a plutonium based nuclear weapon? But how are they going to fit that in a missile head? Up until now everything and everyone have been accusing Iran as wanting to build a uranium based weapon. Pointing to the enrichment, the missile technology, the comical analysis of the documents found in a laptop as to simulating fitting of the uranium core onto the head of a missile, the Ukranian nanodiamonds expert who was to have helped Iranians in detonation of uranium in the head of a missile. Now Borger wants us to believe, throw all of that away, he has found a Plutonium bomb plan, and he came up with the conclusion because Iran is building a nuclear fuel rod for either of the two nuclear facilities they have. And he has also found his "expert", Olli Heinonen, a pro-Israel weakling at IAEA, to make up a story.
This article is as much a nonsense as Borger's other article on Iran capturing the US drone. There it was in picture and video, he went long and far, to find an expert to say that the drone was fake amid all the background evidence from US officials to the contrary. The next day US president asked for it back, that story is still online. How can someone like Borger be ever taken seriously? If not an Israeli agent, he is indeed a very confused individual, a mumbling bumbling individual with an agenda. He may do better at a celebrity gossip publication than a serious news organization.
9 January 2012 2:12AM
Iran does NOT have the capability to enrich uranium to weapon's grade. Even if they did, why shouldn't they be allowed to? What has it to do with us, the US or Israel.? NOTHING. All inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, prove time and time again that Iran does NOT have weapon's grade uranium, nor is it attempting in any way to build nuclear weapons. Their low grade uranium is clearly ONLY for energy.
I do applaud the Guardian for at least letting us comment on this story, as pretty much every other paper has lied its head off about Iran and won't allow comments to challenge their lies.
9 January 2012 11:26AM
<Are we now to believe Iran is building a plutonium based nuclear weapon?>
Believe what you like, I didn't see anything to suggest they ARE, but I did read that if they keep pursuing this technology they certainly could.