Hmmmmm!! Iran is the only state I know energy surplus and have the potentials to export billions of dollars worth of energy for generations. Still wants reactors and centrifuge technology.. very strange very very strange… Now here is a million dollar question.. Does Iran have the bomb? Ans: You bet ya mama ass.
One more question, How did Iran aquire the following technology?
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Your guess is as good as mine! bye bye terrorism bye bye :hehe:
http://dailymailnews.com/200403/21/column.html#c1
Russia-Iran nuclear proliferation
Sobia Nisar
RUSSIA has trained 700 specialists for a nuclear power station it is building in Iran despite US concerns. The US has showed concern that Tehran wants to use the Russian Nuclear training to develop nuclear weapons. Russians insist that $800 million Bushehr project is purely for peaceful purposes and will press on with the construction. The Russian trained nuclear specialists had been undergoing training in Novoronezh, some 400 kilometres south of Moscow. Russia is planning to train over 700 workers by the beginning of next year.
However, it is interesting to wonder why oil and gas-rich Iran needs relatively expensive nuclear energy. It makes even less economic sense for Iran to develop its own uranium mines and enrichment facilities when it can import reactor fuel more cheaply from Russia. Critics point out the weaknesses of the IAEA inspection system, which fails to detect the covert nuclear weapons program in Iran. Western specialists are not convinced that even the strengthened inspection regime which the IAEA is introducing under its “93+2” reform program would be sufficient to guarantee that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons.
The US administration and Western non-proliferation experts were concerned about the proliferation implications of the proposed power reactor itself, but many of the projects listed in the secret protocol raised additional alarm, since they could contribute even more directly to the suspected Iranian nuclear weapons program. The centrifuge plant was particularly disturbing. Its ostensible purpose was to enrich natural uranium to five percent U-235 in order to manufacture power reactor fuel, an activity that is permitted under the NPT. But the same technology could be applied to make 90 percent enriched uranium, the raw material for a nuclear weapon.
The possibility that Iran will use the Bushehr reactor directly in its nuclear weapons programme cannot in any w ay be ruled out under the current NPT regime. The VVER-1000 reactor to be installed at Bushehr will generate spent fuel each year containing more than 180kg of plutonium. Even reactor-grade plutonium can be used to build a primitive nuclear device, if Iran were to divert and reprocess this fuel in violation of its NPT obligations. In addition, if Iran was to abruptly exit from the NPT at some point (as North Korea tried to do in 1993), and fuel burn up were reduced, the reactor could produce a significant quantity of weapons-grade plutonium.
Uncertainty regarding the disposition of the spent fuel is another troubling aspect of the Bushehr reactor deal. The best option from the non-proliferation point of view would be to have Russia take the spent fuel back for permanent storage. Worth mentioning, Russian environmental law appears to preclude the return of spent fuel from foreign reactors. Russian officials have insisted that the radioactive waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent fuel should be returned to the country operating the reactor, and have not been entirely clear about whether Russia will accept the spent fuel for reprocessing or not. Nor have they clarified what elements of the reprocessed fuel they might ship back to Iran for storage, again raising significant proliferation questions. The issue of spent fuel resurfaced in July 2002, following reports that in spite of Russian assurances that spent fuel would be returned to Russia, no such provisions existed. Although Russia and Iran apparently reached an agreement in principle when the contract was signed, at the time there existed a number of practical obstacles, including Russian legislation preventing the importation of spent fuel into Russia. Although that law was changed in 2001, and as of July 2002 Russia and Iran were engaged in negotiations to work out the details of the spent fuel take back plan. But the handicaps exist till now.
An even more serious concern is that Bushehr will provide indirect assistance to different aspects of the suspected Iranian nuclear weapons program. Moscow is committed to training Iranian physicists and technicians for Bushehr at the Kurchatov Institute and the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant. Iranian nuclear scientists also visited the Scientific Research Design Institute of Energy Technologies (NIKIET) in Moscow and, according to Minister of Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev, Russian specialists will assist Iranians in the operation of the first unit of Bushehr NPP for the first six years of its operation. Collaborating with Russian specialists will greatly provide opportunity for Iranian nuclear specialists to have access to Russian nuclear technology. Collaborating in the construction of the Bushehr reactor, for example, could yield Iran know-how in the construction of a covert plutonium production reactor, should Iran attempt to base its nuclear weapons program on plutonium. Cooperation with Russian specialists on uranium mining, milling, and enrichment could assist Iran in efforts to build a covert uranium enrichment plant. This is one reason why the centrifuge enrichment plant provided for under the original reactor deal was so disturbing. Russian centrifuge technology, while advanced, is less technically demanding than that of Western Europe, and it was feared that Iran could reverse-engineer Russian centrifuges, greatly accelerating its efforts to enrich uranium to weapons grade, if it chooses to take that route to build nuclear weapons. Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation could provide a cover for illegal transfers of nuclear technology from Iran to Russia, which cannot be ruled out given the financial crisis in the Russian nuclear industry and the relative weakness of Russian export controls. The western watchdogs and non-proliferation regimes should keep an eye on Russian-Iran Nuclear proliferation and should take immediate steps to abandon such illegal transfers.
