Israel Matzav

The danger of Bushehr

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have found much of the reporting about the Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr, which is scheduled to start loading fuel on Saturday, confusing. I found this post clarifying.

Although Washington once found the Bushehr project problematic, in recent years it has depicted the reactor as the type of peaceful nuclear-power project it has encouraged in other regional countries. In 2009, for example, Washington signed a so-called "123 agreement" with the United Arab Emirates allowing for further nuclear cooperation (a term derived from a paragraph with that number in the 1954 Atomic Energy Act). This week, the State Department said, "Bushehr does not represent a proliferation risk [but] underscores that Iran does not need its own indigenous enrichment capability [at Natanz]."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington acquiesced to this weekend's start-up as part of the diplomatic price for Moscow's acceptance of new UN sanctions on Iran, approved last month. U.S.-Russian diplomacy on the nuclear issue has been further complicated by Moscow's planned provision of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran, a deal agreed but not yet enacted. Those missiles could greatly hamper any potential airstrikes against nuclear targets such as Natanz, Arak, or the Isfahan uranium conversion facility; consequently, their delivery could prompt an early Israeli airstrike before they became operational.

Once the Bushehr reactor becomes operational, the worst-case scenario is that Iran declares its military nuclear intentions and bars inspectors and Russian officials from the new plant. The fuel assemblies contain several tons of uranium enriched to 3.5 percent of the fissile (i.e., potentially explosive) U-235 isotope. If diverted and converted into feedstock for the Natanz enrichment plant, that material would considerably enhance the site's ability to produce the 90 percent enriched uranium needed for an atomic bomb. (So far, Natanz has produced just 5,300 pounds of low-enriched uranium, some as high as nearly 20 percent enriched.)

Alternatively, if used in the Bushehr reactor, the fuel rods would produce plutonium residue, and if reprocessed, that material could eventually be sufficient for the production of at least one nuclear bomb per year. And military action against any reactor containing plutonium would lead to widespread deadly contamination. (In contrast, Israel's 1981 strike against Iraq's nuclear reactor and 2007 destruction of Syria's planned reactor both took place before fuel had been inserted.)

There are a couple more points worth considering. Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:50 PM