http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101502761_pf.html
Oct. 2009
A Hitch in Iran’s Nuclear Plans?
By David Ignatius
Friday, October 16, 2009
Since you’re probably not a regular reader of the trade publication Nucleonics Week, let me summarize an article that appeared in its Oct. 8 issue. It reported that Iran’s supply of low-enriched uranium — the potential feedstock for nuclear bombs — appears to have certain “impurities” that “could cause centrifuges to fail” if the Iranians try to boost it to weapons grade.
Now that’s interesting. The seeming breakthrough in negotiations on Oct. 1 in Geneva — where Iran agreed to send most of its estimated 1,500 kilograms of low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment — may not have been exactly what it appeared. Iran may have had no alternative but to seek foreign help in enrichment because its own centrifuges wouldn’t work.
“The impurities, certain metallic fluoride compounds, would interfere with centrifuge enrichment” at Iran’s facility at Natanz, reported the newsletter’s Bonn correspondent, Mark Hibbs.
This news strikes me as a potential bombshell. If the Nucleonics Week report is accurate (and there’s some uncertainty among experts about how serious the contamination problem is), the Iranian nuclear program is in much worse shape than most analysts had realized. The contaminated fuel it has produced so far would be all but useless for nuclear weapons. To make enough fuel for a bomb, Iran might have to start over — this time avoiding the impurities.
You’ve got to hand it to the Iranians, though, for making the best of what might be a bad situation: In the proposal embraced in Geneva, they have gotten the West to agree to decontaminate fuel that would otherwise be useful only for the low-enriched civilian nuclear power they have always claimed is their only goal.
and then on Jan 09 2010
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3897.htm
...
In response to a question about exchanging Iran’s 1,200 kilograms of uranium, already enriched to 3.5%, for 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20%, Salehi said: “Although we informed the IAEA in advance that our centrifuges are set up in such a way that we do not enrich uranium to over 5%, we do have the right to enrich uranium to a level of up to 100%, and we will always have this right. Enrichment to a level of 20% is also within our rights, but we prefer to obtain the [nuclear] fuel from abroad.”
...
During the interview, Salehi reiterated several times that even though Iran had the ability to supply its own needs, it preferred to purchase the enriched uranium, so that Iran and the rest of the world could assess the sincerity of the West’s proposals.
[things that make you go Hmmmmmm.]
your thots?
You may be confusing the 1,500 tons of raw Urannium Iran was trying to smuggle in with the kilograms of what they want to export.
However, Iran has invested a small fortune in a new type of centrifuge that gets much better results in a state of the art manner - unlike the old way.
And as you say, they may be starting all over again with the tonnage they were trying to sneak in.
In that scenario, the “useless” stuff they have made, being refined and sent back is isicn on the cake and a pure dissimulation.
Specially as they can later claim purer uranium found there in teh future as being part of the exchanged stuff rather than their own new, efficient refining capability.
Please keep us educated as in this piece.