We’re just four days away from National Nuclear Technology Day in Iran when no doubt President Ahmadinejad will have another big announcement to make. In preparation, Iran seems to have been installing some more P-2s IR-2s (ooops, sorry). George Jahn and Mark Heinrich have both got stories on this, but their efforts have produced some contradictory findings.
Jahn has spoken to three diplomats.
Diplomat 1 said that Iran has completed two cascades of 176 advanced centrifuges—presumably IR-2s in the FEP (the big underground facility as opposed to much smaller above-ground PFEP). He also said that a third cascade is under construction.
As for diplomat 2:
Asked for confirmation that Iran had assembled IR-2s at its underground site, a senior diplomat briefed on Iran’s enrichment program said “not true” but refused to say whether he was denying that the model was an IR-2 or that the machines were underground.
Diplomat 3 “confirmed that Iran had started linking up advanced centrifuges in a configuration used for enrichment. But he said all remained above ground and none of the machines were running.”
Heinrich has also spoken to diplomats (plural) who say that Iran has installed more than 300 centrifuges in two cascades, and quotes one diplomat who says:
One of the two cascades is using the advanced model, the other the older one. There are more machines in the advanced cascade than the set of 164 typically used for the (older model)…Iran may not have had enough of the advanced one ready yet to put into two cascades. But they wanted to show the world they could go beyond the threshold of 3,000 now enriching at Natanz (despite international pressure) to stop.
What do we learn from this? There’s broad agreement that Iran has added at least two cascades, and that at least some of new machines are IR-2s. Interestingly, it also seems that IR-2 cascades house more machines than P-1 cascades. It’s not clear, however, whether the machines are in the PFEP or FEP and whether they are all IR-2s.
The PFEP was designed to accommodate six cascades of 164-machines. The Agency’s most recent report on Iran suggests that space for 2 cascades is occupied. One space is filled by a cascade of 164 P-1 machines and the other space is taken up by a single IR-2 machine and a 10-machine IR-2 cascade (where some small P-1 cascades used to be). Although the four spaces that remain were designed to accommodate 164 centrifuges, it presumably wouldn’t be too hard to fit 176 in—if you’re prepared to replumb.
Equally, there is space in the FEP and GOV/2008/4 also said that “installation work, including equipment and sub-hearer pipes, is continuing for other cascade areas [i.e. away from the 18 cascades that have already been installed]”. Moreover, installing the new cascades in the FEP might make it easier for Ahmadinejad to claim that Iran was pushing ahead with “industrial-scale” enrichment.
But even if they’re in the PFEP that’s not going to stop him, of course. Ahmadinejad is pretty much certain to make some grandiose claim about Iran’s enrichment efforts in the next few days. With National Nuclear Technology Day just ahead, and a new Security Council Resolution just behind, he’ll be in a defiant mood and keen to convince the Security Council to U-turn because Iran’s not for turning (to paraphrase Mrs T). But, whatever he says, treat it with a cellar of salt. After all, we still have no idea how good the IR-2s actually are yet.
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Your repeated references to Ahmadinejad overlooks the fact that he has very little say or control over Iran’s nuclear program, and is probably intended to be inflammatory.
Furthermore, the location of the centrifuges is hardly a big deal since Iran’s facilities are under IAEA monitoring. So, what’s your point except to repeat “Ahmadinejad” a few times?
— hass · Apr 4, 09:02 AM ·
A couple of interesting things about IR-2 machines. They are carbon fiber rotors, not maraging steel — better technology. And they’re shorter than the P-2 because Iran couldn’t make the bellows to join two cylinders (Iraq did, you will remember).
So they don’t have the capacity that the P-2 does, but there’s a lot of Iranian intellectual accomplishment in the new machines.
Note that the number of machines in each cascade has increased from 164 to 176. That’s reasonable, since the SWU output of the new machine is different than the old one, so the cascade design has to be rethought. The sizing of the cascade depends on assumed input, enrichment desired, and tails assay acceptable as well as the SWU/year and volume of the centrifuges. A question is whether the new configuration indicates an intent to enrich to greater percentages, to strip the tails better, or some combination. I’m off on a 10 day business trip and won’t have time to look at the theory until the 14th; if anybody else has the computations programmed, I would be very interested to see them.
Hass is correct that we don’t ‘know’ how good the machines are in actual performance, and we do know that Iran has had troubles with the previous generation cascades. Nevertheless, the new centrifuges are a technical improvement on the P-1 series, and unquestionably have higher SWU/year capacity. The remaining question is whether they break or clog, etc.
— peter zimmerman · Apr 4, 09:16 AM ·
Ahmadinejad’s inflammatory statements aren’t as much of a concern to me as is the silence of the rest of the Iranian government after he makes them. The lack of repudiation gives the impression that his views are those of government as a whole or at least the real power brokers in Iran.
— Andy · Apr 4, 09:56 AM ·
I think that the real story, when it comes out, will be different from what has been reported. It will be both more disturbing in how far Iran has come in mastering P-1 manufacturing technology in light of the focused sanctions (something Jeffrey and I have disagreed about in the past) and more reassuring with regards to IR-2; Iran is following a much more “natural” development path than these stories seem to imply.
p.s. I cannot pass by the opportunity to point out that carbon fiber rotors do not need rotors! So the reason IR-2 is shorter than P-2s is different than what is mentioned above.
— Geoffrey Forden · Apr 4, 09:56 AM ·
Bellows! Carbon rotors do not need bellows!
— Geoffrey Forden · Apr 4, 10:03 AM ·
“Inflammatory statements” that go unrepudiated come out of countries much closer to the US regularly, as well as the US itself. The media doesn’t make as much of a big deal out of them though. Consider Bush’s explicit threat to nuke Iran, for starters . . .
— hass · Apr 4, 11:17 AM ·
“Consider Bush’s explicit threat to nuke Iran, for starters . . .”
Which was…when?
— abcd · Apr 4, 12:49 PM ·
Get real, if the Iranian government were to repudiate some of Ahmadinejad’s “inflammatory statements” then Bush, Cheney, Olmert, Livni, Sarkozy, Merkel and great swathes of western media would be banging on about how the Iranian regime was about to fall apart and how one small extra push would bring it down so it is hardly surprising they keep their collective mouths shut.
— blowback · Apr 4, 02:02 PM ·
Hass,
Please. If some DoS functionary says something that is NOT US policy it is almost immediately corrected yet Ahmadinejad can say virtually anything and the Supreme Leader remains silent.
You yourself said Ahmadinejad’s statements are probably designed to be inflammatory – how exactly is one to distinguish it from actual Iranian policy when it isn’t repudiated?
— Andy · Apr 4, 02:28 PM ·
I remain concerned over intent rather than perceived capabilities. Our perceptions at this time are baseless (nobody is at ground zero other than these…Ahem…Diplomats…don’t get me started on diplomats.
Until such time as we have a real Rocket Scientist working with the Iranians every swingin’ day, I remain skeptical.
— Superglide · Apr 4, 03:26 PM ·
If folks wish to denigrate the US that is their perogative.
However, the propoganda that Iran is pursuing nuclear enrichment as a path to meeting domestic power generation needs is specious (that is, laughable.)
To restate that propoganda as rationale for an argument only displays the posters petty prejudices.
First of all, Iran is the fourth largest oil exporter in the world. They have more energy than they could possibly use, and in one of the most readily available and cheapest forms known to man.
Second, many of the worlds established producers of reactor fuel have offered Iran sweetheart deals on ready-to-use reactor fuels as an enticement to get them to stop pursuing a weapons-grade enrichment program under the transparent ruse of it being for domestic power production.
Third, even if we assume the program IS in the interest of domestic nuclear power production, the arguments for it are still specious…
The energy deficit Iran is incurring by building a domestic enrichment program and etc will take them years, if not decades to recover even IF the program IS only a reactor-fuel program and even IF they are successful and even IF they engage in large scale reactor power-generation facility construction some years from now when they finally CAN produce nuclear fuels in quantity.
In summary and to state it over: The argumnent (stated as fact, which makes it nothing more than empty rhetoric or propoganda) that Iran is pursuing enrichment for domestic power production is ridiculous, whether looked at in terms of real energy needs, available resources, the domestic energy budget, etc ad nauseum.
Which leaves only one conclusion: That the programs are specifically NOT for power production, and that leaves only one other explanation: Nuclear weapons.
As I said, people have a right to their prejudices and their opinions, but when they throw around empty rhetoric like that it only makes clear that is ALL they are doing…
— Lance · Apr 4, 04:56 PM ·
Ummm…Andy, the threats to nuke Iran were not by “some DoS functionary” but were by the President of the United States of America. When specifically questioned about the potential use of nuclear weapons against Iran, President Bush said that “All options were on the table”. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist,
(note that the ‘preemptive’ description doesn’t really apply either)
In fact the US has made it quite clear in its Nuclear Posture Review that Iran is the target of a nuclear first strike (in violation of the Negative Security Assurance as well as international law.)
And before you try to play down the significance of those statements, ask yourself what the reaction would have been had an Iranian president casually said that nuking the US is an “option on the table”. Note that Iranians took 60,000 casualities as a result of Saddam’s US-backed chemical weapons warfare alone — that’s 20 times the 9/11 deaths.
From an objective point of view, who do you think has more reason to be concerned about “intent” and “inflammatory talk”? Which is more cause for worry – Iran’s nonexistent nukes or the actual, existing nukes of a country that claims a right to attack others? Who is really threatening to whom?
— Hass · Apr 4, 07:38 PM ·
When asked about the possibility of American use of nuclear weapons against Iran, I believe that Bush said “All options are on the table”.
Not only was that not repudiated, it was repeated by the supporting cast.
— mark F · Apr 4, 08:19 PM ·
I am a great respecter of Geoffrey Fordern’s inputs to ACW, but I must disagree with his comment that “Carbon rotors do not need bellows”. The IR2 does not need bellows because, as I understand it, it is a sub-critical design. However, super-critical rotors, whether of carbon fibre, maraging steel, or any other material, do benefit from having bellows because these damp the response as the rotor passes through its critical speeds. Certainly the Iraqi attempts to develop super-critical carbon fibre rotors included bellows. For example, in the presentation “Non-Proliferation, Nuclear Security and Export Control: Lessons and Challenges,” sponsored by ISIS and the Center for Export Control, Moscow, April 19-20, 2001, the person speaking on behalf of Karl Heinz Schaab, who had been convicted for his role in assisting the Iraqi enrichment programme, stated:
“When they arrived at their hotel in Auerbach, Stemmler showed Schaab the documents, including one or two original blueprints of gas centrifuge components. There was also a drawing of a multi-tube, or “supercritical,” carbon-fiber centrifuge with a drawing of a bellows, which is a critical component in Urenco-type supercritical centrifuges.”
My opinion, for what it may be worth, is that the Iranian move to carbon fibre is simple pragmatism. Maraging steel, and CNC flow-formers with mandrels about 150 mm in diameter, are highly suspicious objects when inspected by customs! There are very few uses for this kind of material in these dimensions, except for rocket / missile casings and centrifuges. Additionally, maraging steel of the right kind is metallurgically quite difficult to produce in bulk: in 1996 exports of maraging steel from the UK to Iran were seized by customs, and as recently as 2005 the National Council of Resistance of Iran (admittedly NOT the most objective of sources) was publishing names of Iranian companies involved in the importation of maraging steel, and the names of Iranian universities involved in research into maraging steel. All of which suggests that from at least 1996 to 2005 Iran had not made sufficient metallurgical progress to be able to produce maraging steel in sufficient quantity and quality for its centrifuge programme. Thus I think it is a reasonable assumption that Iran has had, and probably still has, insufficient industrial capacity to support a maraging-steel based centrifuge programme.
In contrast, if we refer again to Herr Schaab’s reflections on his assistance to the Iraqi programme: “Although the designing and initial manufacturing of carbon fiber rotors is more difficult than maraging steel rotors, the manufacturing equipment for carbon fiber rotors is significantly less expensive, and the manufacturing process is easier once the technique is mastered.”
To that can be added the fact that Iran has plenty of capacity for producing carbon fibre. The basis for carbon fibre is polyacrylonitrile (PAN), which is the same stuff that is used in the textile industry for polyester and acrylic production; Polyacryl Iran Corporation alone produces about 95,000 tonnes of textiles per year. Now, before they ring their libel lawyers, I am NOT for one minute suggesting that PIC is involved in a carbon fibre centrifuge programme – I’m only saying that Iran has plenty of sovreign capability to produce carbon fibre, in a way that it can’t produce maraging steel.
With respect to winding the rotors, a key feature appears to be the winding pattern. In the case of Herr Schaab:
“Towards the end of this meeting, one Iraqi asked Schaab if he could perform a complicated winding pattern in a carbon-fiber rotor, called “crossfree” winding. Such a pattern is used in the production of high-performance components. He answered yes. But Schaab was surprised that the Iraqis knew enough to ask this question.”
Winding machines were eventually provided to the Iraqis by Alwo of Switzerland. But with regard to their pattern:
“Schaab also was going to program the machine in Iraq after it was installed. He would have punched the code into the machine himself. He said the process is difficult and could have taken as long as a month to finish. He said the controller of the machine did not have a slot for a disc or CD, so he would have had to do the programming on-site.”
All of this was in 1989, yet consider how much commoner carbon fibre has become since then. From tennis racquets to golf clubs to lightweight bullet-proofing; there is probably no shortage of suitable carbon fibre winding machines available.
As I see it, an Iranian centrifuge programme based on maraging steel is going to be constrained by both raw material and flow-forming difficulties. In contrast, one based on carbon fibre has no raw material constraints, and the production technology is not so closely correlated with military uses, which consequently makes it much easier to get hold of.
I haven’t touched on Iran’s motivation for developing more capable centrifuges – maybe they are intending to build a weapon, maybe they aren’t. Certainly I’m not qualified to read their minds. However, there is one intersting aspect of the “upgrade”: one of the primary arguments against Natanz having a purely innocent role was that 50,000 P1 rotors would be insufficent to supply enough kg-SWU/year to fuel the Bushehr reactor. With 50,000 IR2s that argument becomes weaker, and Iran’s claim of purely peaceful intentions gains credibility. Perhaps this is the real reason why they are so keen to show off their developments, rather than keeping the new technology hidden.
— Hairs · Apr 5, 07:35 AM ·
Lance et al.:
Look fellas, could we please once and for all put to the rest the half-backed myth that oil-exporting countries can’t possibly need nuclear power, or that Iran is doing something uniquely suspicious in the world by developing its own nuclear energy alternatives?
Iran’s strong case for nuclear power is obscured by UN sanctions and geopolitics
Author: David Wood
Journal: Atoms for Peace: an International Journal, 2007 – Vol. 1, No.4 pp. 287 – 300
The fuel behind Iran’s nuclear drive David Isenberg
Asia Times Aug 24, 2005
Forced to Fuel
by M Sahami
Harvard Int’l Law Review,
Vol. 26 No. 4 – Winter 2005
Blasts from the Past: Western Support for Iran’s Nuclear program
Iran Affairs May 30 2007
Iran actually is short of oil
by Roger Stern
International Herald Tribune January 8, 2007
Energy : Iran needs nuclear power
By Mohammad Sahimi, Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh and Kaveh L. Afrasiabi
International Herald Tribune TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2003
Is Iran Building Nukes? An Economic Analysis
by William O. Beeman and Thomas Stauffer Part 2
Pacific News Service, Jun 26, 2003
— Hass · Apr 5, 02:48 PM ·
Hairs is absolutely right when he points out that 50,000 P1s could not sustain Bushehr if it operated at full power. That I know because I have done the calculation. Unfortunately, I am relying on others, who I greatly respect for their knowledge of centrifuges, for my statement that carbon fiber rotors do not need bellows. So I cannot be as unequivocal about that and I just have to say that Hairs could be right. But, as it was explained to me, the natural flexibility of carbon fibers makes bellows unnecessary; they act as their own bellows. Obviously, if you can avoid bellows that is much better since the flow along the rotor is less disturbed.
I was also trying to make a point about Iran’s ability to produce P1s, with bellows, under sanctions. Again, when the real story comes out, it will turn out that Iran has definitely mastered the complete manufacturing process for P1s and that they do not import many of the components most people assume that they do.
— Geoffrey Forden · Apr 5, 05:38 PM ·
I had a feeling that was the quote you were going to pull out. Look, nobody has ever labeled Bush among history’s great strategists or orators, but that quote is ambiguous enough to read into it that he isn’t excluding a water balloon attack from consideration.
— abcd · Apr 5, 06:33 PM ·
FSB:
I concur that “Iran has every right to a domestic independent nuclear enrichment program”. Why? Because it’s in Iran’s national interest.
With that said, the United States has every right to hinder Iran’s progress. Why? Because it’s in the U.S. national interest.
— Tim Kelly · Apr 6, 10:55 AM ·
About the bellows, I think that both points of view are correct. The issue revolves over the resonance “band gap”
We understand the problem that the machines cannot be operated near a transverse resonance of the tube or it will blow up. Now, as you increase in frequency, you repeatedly cross resonances. The purpose of bellows is to modify the spectrum of resonances so that there are several very low frequency resonances and then a large “band gap”
opens up by design right across the operation point. (For a many bellows machine, just like in a semiconductor.)
Now, it is still necessary to spin through the resonances, but now they are at very low frequency and presumably motors can be designed to accelerate fast enough that the machine won’t explode before crossing through the resonance band and into the “band gap”. The lower frequency resonances probably have a slower exponential growth rate too, but I am just guessing there. There will be one resonance for each bellows in the rotor – e.g. a 3 bellows machine will then have 3 low frequency resonances and resonance #4 will be above the operating spin speed of the machine. Therefore, if you know the number of bellows and the height of the rotor, you can figure out roughly what the design spin speed is.
In principle, I suppose that it would be possible to form bellows in the carbon fiber itself, and this could be the origin of the statement that carbon fiber rotors don’t need bellows, yet I do not think that is the explanation.
In the case of the Iranian centrifuges, I suspect that if they do not have bellows, they are probably a sub-critical design. For carbon fiber, the resonant frequencies will be nearly double that of steel. Furthermore, this may make a tradeoff to a slightly larger diameter rotor attractive which would drive the resonant frequency up even more. Put that all together, and maybe that is enough to run subcritical at an advantage.
With the ultracentrifuges like the US has built, the rotors get so long that there are going to be several dozen resonances below the operating point. With this many resonances and such a long rotor, it probably isn’t possible to sweep through all the resonances fast enough to prevent the whole thing from self-destructing. Furthermore, the location of the resonances will be very dependent on the bellows characteristics which is probably hard to control with great precision. As a consequence, a different engineering approach is adopted. A computerized system approaches each resosnance gingerly and then rapidly accelerates through it at maximum possible and unsustainable acceleration. Wait for the rotor to settle down, and repeat on the next one. In this way, one can climb through the resonances one by one until reaching an operating point carefully placed and held in between two resonances. Could be wrong, but this is my interpretation of the situation.
— John Field · Apr 6, 02:10 PM ·
Iran has strategic reasons to want domestic enrichment even though indications are that Iran does not have plans to build a weapon in any foreseeable timeframe.
This has been discussed in the comments threads of this blog many times. One example is here.
My take on Iran’s motivations are, again, 1) Iran wants the theoretical capacity (consistent with the NPT) to build a weapon, 2) it wants its supply of nuclear fuel not to be subject or to be less subject to US pressure that it sees as independent of the nuclear issue and 3) it wants to defeat what it sees as an unfair embargo on technology against Muslim countries in the Middle East.
— Arnold Evans · Apr 6, 07:30 PM ·
I don’t think there is any contradiction in what Geoffrey Fordern and I are posting: In principle one can make a super-critical centrifuge without bellows from any of the common materials; in practice no-one, as far as I am aware, has succeeded with maraging steel or aluminium – they always used a bellows because without its damping properties they couldn’t through the critical speeds. According to Geoffrey’s sources (and I have no evidence to doubt them) it has been done with carbon fibre, but I suspect that a bellowless super-critical design is a more advanced undertaking than one with bellows.
Anyway, the fact remains that the IR2 is, by most accounts, a sub-critical carbon-fibre bellow-free centrifuge. Even though the IR2 remains sub-critical (like the P1) the higher tensile strength of its carbon fibre allows it to rotate faster than a P1, and hence it has a higher separative capacity. I agree with Geoffrey that Iran appears to have mastered the manufacture of the P1 design (and / or has a sufficiently reliable supply of any components it cannot manufacture), therefore the point becomes: Why change to the IR2?
At the risk of repeating myself, my opinion is:
1) They haven’t (yet?) mastered bellows design and manufacture. If they had it would surely be a simpler step to make some longer, super-critical aluminium rotors and thus make the most of the knowledge they already have.
2) They can not / prefer not to move to maraging steel. Here I suspect they face difficulties because they can neither manufacture nor import sufficient steel of the right grade. Additionally I suspect that making or acquiring CNC flow formers of the right size is much harder for them than making or acquiring appropriate carbon fibre winding machines.
3) There could be a political imperative to demonstrate that Natanz does have (or will have) the capacity to supply Bushehr’s fuel requirements. This would neutralise the argument that “Natanz cannot be peaceful because it is too small for a reactor programme”.
4) As a sideline thought, an IR2 programme would also put a little commercial pressure on prices when buying fuel from the Russians. After all, if Russia is the monopoly supplier then prices go up accordingly. But if Iran has a demonstrated sovereign capability then Russian prices would have to become a little more (shall we say) competitive.
— Hairs · Apr 6, 11:37 PM ·
Actually, Tim, by “hindering” Iran’s legal acquisition and development of a nuclear energy program, the United States is breaching and even further undermining its own NPT obligations, which is what drove Iran to resort to dealing with Pakistan in the first place, and is why other nations don’t trust the US when it comes to “assurances” of nuclear fuel supplies etc. So, is that really in the interest of the United States?
As for the capacity of Iran’s planned 50,000 centrifuges — the Iranians have repeatedly said that they don’t envision relying excusively on their own enriched uranium to power their nuclear program (22 reactors planned since 1976) rather they want to have a strategic capacity to make up for shortfall, and to buffer spikes in uranium prices. They’re happy to import uranium fuel and are doing so for Bushehr right now too.
— hass · Apr 7, 10:01 AM ·
did someone hack into your system and delete my posts? ;)
— FSB · Apr 7, 10:36 AM ·
re: Lance – while you may be right that Iran’s end objective is HEU can we say that with such certainty? What of Brazil’s programs? Could they not just export their natural uranium to another country for processing into reactor grade fuel? Why go to all that trouble? While Iran has very limited reserves, what is to prevent them from importing raw material and then processing it domestically?
Hass – there have also been studies pointing out the limited production Iran can hope for (at least in the nearer term) from their enrichment programs (how many reactors could they fuel thru domestic fuel production?) and that it also robs money and effort to upgrade domestic oil and gas production and distribution. Of course these also discount the nationalist element, technical achievements and sense of independence not to mention mismanagement of limited resources, something common in most governments
— mike · Apr 7, 04:47 PM ·
Tim Kelly wrote:
“With that said, the United States has every right to hinder Iran’s progress. Why? Because it’s in the U.S. national interest.”
How is it in the U.S. national interest? Has anyone in the United States or Europe ever lost a minute of sleep worrying about a nuclear attack from Iran? Of course not. One American (French, British, Russian, possibly Israeli) missile submarine — not to mention all the other delivery systems — could completely obliterate Iran’s hundred largest cities in response within thirty minutes. The Iranians know that perfectly well and they would conduct themselves accordingly, even if they had a few warheads. The Persians are not eager to have their population, their culture and their ancient civilisation utterly destroyed, regardless of the western Establishment “news” reports that intimate they are.
The only country mentioned above that fears losing its “big stick” nuclear weapons monopoly in the region is Israel. So what you really meant to say is “it’s in the Israeli national interest.”
Sorry, but Israel’s national interests are not America’s national interests. In fact, from an economic and geopolitical point of view normalised relations and a closer alliance with Iran would be much more logical for the United States than the present close alliance with (stranglehold of) Israel.
— Mark Konrad · Apr 8, 08:34 AM ·
I don’ t think that Iran will have nuclear weapons. But they are in a difficult position with Israel ,US in Irak and Afhganistan. Israel has 300 nuclear weapons, which represents 3800 Hiroshima bombs.
— Kim Jong Ilien · Apr 8, 11:02 PM ·
Re Brazil – they want nuclear propelled subs, having just authorised a small prototype reactor. Presumably they will use HEU in this, though hopefully not at weapons enrichment levels (which US subs do use). What if Iran were to follow this path, allowable under NPT?
— Rwendland · Apr 9, 10:49 AM ·
Good for Brazil. Developments like this are the only thing that can lead the US and the West to agree to a fair universal non-proliferation framework, including a re-negotiation of the NPT with real requirement for US, Chinese, Russian, British and French disarmament and real pressure on Israel, Pakistan and India to join.
Here’s hoping Iran follows Brazil’s lead.
If only the US non-proliferation community didn’t see non-proliferation as a tactic to gain and maintain strategic advantages for parties it favors, such as Israel, more than as an effort to introduce a world with less and then no nuclear weapons.
— Arnold Evans · Apr 9, 11:37 PM ·
Please clarify this for me:
I understand that no nuclear powered submarine / surface vessel has ever been sold / transferred from a state (NWS or not) to another state. Can someone confirm this ?
Would the transfer of nuclear power technology, nuclear reactor(s), component(s), fuel, etc, to power a vessel, military or civilian, be within the “peaceful” use of nuclear energy permitted under the NPT?
In other words, can Brazil and India obtain this knowhow or capability lawfully under the NPT?
— Lao Tao Ren · Apr 10, 09:49 AM ·
“If only the US non-proliferation community didn’t see non-proliferation as a tactic to gain and maintain strategic advantages for parties it favors, such as Israel, more than as an effort to introduce a world with less and then no nuclear weapons.”
Oh come on. You’re painting way too broad of a picture. There are many in the “US non-proliferation community” who favor pressuring the NPT outliers (witness the opposition to the US-India nuclear deal) to join the regime, or participate more faithfully in disarmament efforts. Furthermore, there are plenty of us who think nonproliferation efforts should go hand-in-hand with disarmament.
Don’t (willingly) confuse the “US non-proliferation community” with the DoD.
— abcd · Apr 10, 10:46 AM ·
During the recent show in Natanz Iran presented a centrifuge with a significantly larger diameter than the P-1 or IR-2. Its size was over 1.5m and they also presented something that looked like a carbon-fibre bellow for the IR-2 or an advanced multi-rotor variant of it.
The large centrifuge was certainly a multi-rotor carbon-fibre design, most likely the “advanced” centrifuge mentioned in the last IAEO report.
It was also said that the new generation designs will be 5x times as effective than the IR-1. If we take 2.5 SWU for the IR-1 it would be over 10 SWU for the new generation machine. It’s unknown if they were talking about the IR-2 but the 10+ SWU claim is most likely for the new carbon fibre supercritical machine.
— Pedro · Apr 10, 10:52 AM ·
In fact, Bush has gone out of his way to state that the US wants a diplomatic solution to Iran’s effort to build the bomb and has never stated the desire to’nuke Iran’.
Besides, who needs nukes? The program can be set back years just fine with conventional PGMs. Fire up the B-2’s and get it over with before the red lines n are crossed.
Why is the US so afraid of Iran? The Khobar towers attack, attacks on US forces in Iraq…should be all the justification needed to defend the US from Iran’s committing multiple acts of war against the US for over the last 30 years. When will it be time to FIGHT BACK? Should we wait until their missiles are nuclear capable?
— J House · Apr 10, 05:10 PM ·
Hass,
First of all, sorry for the delay in replying – I’ve been out of town for several days.
Contrary to what you allege above, I don’t at all support Pres. Bush’s implied or specific threat of nuclear first-use and that “all options are on the table.” Even though I feel quite safe in asserting that such a threat is not credible (for a number of reasons I won’t belabor here), I still wholeheartedly condemn it and will gladly join you in such condemnation.
What remains to be seen is if you will address the points and questions on the Iranian President noted above and specifically will you join me in condemning his various “inflammatory” comments on a range of issues including the destruction/dissolution of another UN member state. More importantly, does Ahmadenijad speak for the Iranian government and the Supreme Leader when he makes such statements – IOW, do they represent actual Iranian policy?
— Andy · Apr 11, 11:11 AM ·
Lao: the USSR leased a Charlie-class sub to India in the late 80’s for evaluation and training. At around the same time Canada approached Britain and France about obtaining nuclear-powered submarines and examined their designs, but decided not to purchase any because of the end of the Cold War. There was no mention of legal restrictions or reticence on the part of the sellers at the time.
So nothing really prevents Brazil or India from plunking down a billion dollars or so at a Russian or French shipyard and driving away in a shiny new nuclear-powered sub. But both appear to be interested in building their own, even if they must purchase technology and assistance from abroad. I would not be surprised to see Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea showing a similar interest in nuclear submarines in years to come, especially if India and Brazil test the waters first.
— James · Apr 14, 12:49 PM ·