I agree that most countries, including Japan, farm out their
enrichment/fuel recycling. That is because they are ensured of supplies
from friendly nations. Iran is too isolated in the political world to be
sure that Russia or the EU will keep their promises of supply - and I
honestly cannot blame them. They therefore consider home-grown
enrichment to be a political necessity. I have no idea whether they have
aspirations towards nuclear weaponry or not. Nor do you. All we know is
that there is a lot of political propaganda in the media suggesting that
it is a possibility. However, as this is generated by politicians who
are, by definition, the biggest liars on earth and whom I consider the
lowest scum form of human life (all nations), I give no credence to
their theories whether it is the UK Prime Minister, or the US or the
Irani President who speaks. We, the ordinary bloke in the street, can be
convinced only by the media we are subjected to. I watch regularly US,
UK, European, Swiss, Chinese, Arabic and other satellite news and I'm
always astounded at the different distortions given to a single news
item. I'm not "getting at" Americans, but American newscasts,
particulary Fox but also CNN and MSNBC are the most selective propaganda
and narrow-minded of all of them. Strangely, for international affairs
not directly involving China, the Chinese English Channel 9 is among the
most impartial in their reporting.
I said elsewhere that the Irani President was amongst the more
intelligent politicians of the day and I was attacked by someone saying
that anyone who revised the Holocaust was not intelligent. I question
this assertion on the following grounds: a) he is a politician and
therefore a liar; b) he will say what is expedient to say for his target
audience (his people, not the international scene); c) the Farsi culture
is rich in rhetoric and allegory, which is something the West has never
understood, interpreting the literal truth out of everything that is
said - remember, these are Persians, not Arabs; d) I'm sure that he
knows the truth about the Holocaust, just as much as GWB knew the truth
about WMDs in Iraq; politicians say what is expedient to say, not the
facts.
Just some thoughts...
Brian
Kane, Joseph E (US SSA) wrote:
> Countries with nuclear power plants do not necessarily need to
> enrich their own fuel, and most do not. They farm it out, because
> of the investment in people and resources, and the economies of
> scale. I've heard it said that you would need about 20 plants
> in operation to justify the business case.
>
> So it's hard to explain why the Iranians would invest all of this
> time and effort in enriching fuel, when they could be investing in the
> actual power plants instead. Especially when the Russians were
> willing to give them a very good deal on the fuel, and they turned
> them down flat.
>
> So far from condemning the Iranians out of hand, it's pretty easy to
> come to the conclusion that they want to use this technology to
> develop a weapon. Face it, sitting in their geopolitical shoes,
> it makes a lot of sense. Countries with nuclear weapons
> don't get attacked by rival states (of course, non-state actors like
> terrorists are another matter).
>
> And many of us are not inclined to give the Iranians the benefit of
> the doubt when they protest to the contrary, given various other public
> pronouncements about wiping certain groups off the map. Maybe
> it's unfair, but too bad, we're getting way too much craziness
> and bluster from these guys.
>
> I would challenge the armchair diplomats out there who are
> complaining about the clumsy handling of this issue to suggest
> a better approach. Before the US took this on, the Europeans
> dithered with it for years, so maybe now it's time for EnviroNet to step
> up.
>
> -Joe
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: EnviroNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian Ellis
> Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 4:00 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [EN] How tomorrow's nuclear power stations will differ from
> today's (article)
>
>
> Perhaps I should have emphasised "with their existing equipment" more.
> The present method of enrichment is by centrifuging uranium
> hexafluoride, where the gas containing the more fissile isotopes is very
> slightly heavier than that with the less fissile ones. However, the
> difference is extremely small and enrichment is done by successive
> stages in very large batteries of centrifuges. Each stage produces an
> enrichment of a minute fraction of 1%. I don't have facts and figures
> other than the claims that they have enriched a few g to ~4% in 6 weeks,
> presumably with all their centrifuges working 24/7. Extrapolation of
> this to >90% enrichment in the kg quantities for weaponry is therefore
> easy to see is impossible in a realistic time scale, "with their
> existing equipment".
>
> Where the danger lies is that they have succeeded in enrichment to fuel
> grade on a virtually laboratory scale, therefore they have the know-how.
> Centrifuges are not rocket science and the old, ex-Pakistani,
> centrifuges they have could fairly easily be copied and mass-produced.
> If they could get hold of more modern ones, then they could be more
> efficient and they probably have engineers who could design better ones
> from scratch (they are not a technically ignorant people, make no
> mistake).
>
> Unfortunately, the West has been so politically clumsy in the way they
> have handled the affair (and Bush's speech yesterday to the graduates of
> the Merchant Marine College in NY has exacerbated this clumsiness), that
> they are actually forcing Iran to back into a corner from which the only
> issue is to stubbornly resist any attempts at appeasement.
>
> OK, what does Iran want? They DECLARE (and there is ZERO proof to the
> contrary) they wish to pursue the civil use of nuclear technology.
> Russia is supplying them with pressurised light water reactors whose
> disadvantage is that the fuel needs to be enriched to 4-6%. Russia is
> hoping to supply them with such enriched fuel. Iran says, rightly, that
> they cannot rely on being able to purchase enriched fuel rods (the
> recent natural gas crisis in Ukraine and Europe, shows that Russia
> cannot be considered a reliable fuel supplier). They say, again rightly,
> that they should be able to enrich their own fuel from commercial yellow
> cake, which they could purchase from any country or possibly produce
> indigenously. Up to this point, I don't believe that there is any legal
> argument that may be applied against Iran and security of supply could
> thus be established.
>
> The GWB+henchmen argument is that equipment capable of enriching to 4-6%
> is also usable to 90+%, which is true, in theory, but requires scale
> which Iran ostensibly does not have - yet. The corollary is that they
> have ordered Iran to stop their rightful enrichment (and, consequently,
> their security of supply of nuclear fuel) or be sanctioned by the SC.
> If, instead, they had told Iran from the start that they could enrich to
> 4-6% under IAEA supervision, there would be no problem today, but the
> henchmen have escalated their position to a refusal of rights,
> applicable only to Iran, while many other countries do enrich U. Iran,
> obviously, object to this extremely heavy-handed inequality of
> treatment. What the henchmen have not understood is the Irani mentality.
> They are not blunt Westerners. They are not Arabs. They are a country
> with a very ancient scientific and cultural background. I suggest that
> the President probably has more brains in his little fingernails than
> GWB and Co. have between their ears. He is a master of rhetoric (which
> word GWB, RC, TB, DR etc. would probably have to look up in a dictionary
> to find the meaning of -- if they can read!), but not just rhetoric as
> we know it, but a complex Persian form of rhetoric, which few outside of
> the Farsi culture could hope to understand.
>
> There would have been one easy way to resolve the situation, albeit too
> late now. If Iran had purchased heavy water reactors, the situation
> would probably not have arisen, because enrichment is not necessary. The
> downside is that these reactors can be used to produce weapons grade
> plutonium, so safeguards to ensure the evacuation of this spent fuel
> would have been required, but this is black and white, and not pale
> gray, as is enrichment. Another possibility would be an unenriched
> pebble-bed reactor, but this is trickier to manage. Either would be much
> more expensive in capital costs than a light-water reactor but lower in
> running costs (?? for the PBR, as this has not yet been fully
> evaluated).
>
> I don't think enrichment by gas diffusion, as used for the Hiroshima
> bomb in the 1940s, would even be considered today. The cost and
> resources to produce the U-235 were gigantic, over $1billion at 1940's
> values. The Los Alamos test in 1945 was the most expensive explosion
> ever produced by man and I don't believe Iran could ever afford to go
> that route. Another point to consider is that an enriched uranium weapon
> is easy to make, with sufficient U-235 to exceed criticality, whereas a
> plutonium bomb is much more complex for the chain reaction to be
> initiated rapidly enough before the bomb blew apart, otherwise it would
> just fizzle.
>
> It is difficult, now, to know what Iran's intentions are. The West has
> found them guilty before the crime, which has closed the gates to
> negotiation. We did not learn from the WMD fiasco in Iraq and we are all
> too keen to assume the worst, without real cause. I am not saying that
> Iran is innocent and faultless, but I do not like the way thay are being
> forced into a corner.
>
> Brian
>
> Charles Dolci wrote:
>> Brian Ellis wrote, in part:
>> "...Yes, if it has taken them 6 weeks to enrich 3 or 4 g to 4% with
>> their existing equipment, it would take them many decades to enrich
>> sufficient U to sustain an uncontrolled chain reaction (i.e. a bomb)."
>>
>> I am no scientist so I am in no position to debate Brian on the
>> scientific basis of his assertion about Iran's ability to make nuclear
>> weapons. However, I am an historian and I do recall that the US was
> able
>> to develop two kinds of nuclear weapons (one plutonium and one uranium
>> based) in just four years, starting from scratch. Not only did the US
>> and its British cohorts have to prove concepts they also had to
> overcome
>> the engineering issues associated with all aspects of nuclear weapon
>> development. And they were using technology and tools that, today, are
>> at least 65 years old.
>>
>> Just why will it take Iran "decades" to develop a nuclear weapon, when
>> the US and Britain were able to do it all in just 4 years, 65 years
> ago?
>> Are they that stupid? Do they lack the resources? ... the resolve?
>>
>> After the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima Werenr Heisenberg, one of
> the
>> top German/Nazi scientists who had worked on the German nuclear
> program,
>> and many of his colleagues, were initially skeptical that the
> Hiroshima
>> bomb was really a nuclear weapon. He was convinced that the Americans
>> could not have possibly developed, in such a short time, enough
>> fissionable material for one bomb, much less two. The fact is the US
> had
>> the ability to drop many more A-bombs. A third bomb was being
> assembled
>> and could have been dropped as early as August 17 or 18 (the first was
>> dropped on August 6). Many more were scheduled for completion over the
>> following weeks. History is replete with instances of someone
>> underestimating the abilities of their enemies, much to their mortal
>> danger.
>>
>> Even if Brian is right, I don't get a lot of comfort from the claim
> that
>> Iran may have nuclear weapons after ten or so years.
>>
>> Chuck Dolci
>>
>
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