It Could Take 2-3 Months To Enrich Uranium From 5 to 20 Percent Purity Level
Dec. 20, 09 (Hamsayeh.Net) - Iranian official tells Western powers that Iran possesses the technical know-how for uranium enrichment to the purity level of 20 percent. This comment was made today by Mojtaba Hashemi Samareh a senior aid to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
‘We have no problem in the production of nuclear fuel (for the Tehran research reactor),’ Hashemi Samareh said during a conference on the latest developments over Iran’s nuclear dossier after the last round of talks with the group of 5+1 countries.
Technically speaking, if a country could enrich uranium to 5 percent purity, it could also enrich uranium to higher levels, which in this case is the 20 percent needed for Tehran nuclear reactor. The small 5 MW reactor purchased by the former Pahlavi regime from the United states, has been operating on imported nuclear fuel from overseas up until now. The reactor’s fuel could run for several more months before a fresh refueling would be required.
Iran had asked the suppliers of this fuel that it wishes to purchase the fuel for confidence building and in line with its policy of détente. Western powers proposed a nuclear fuel swap instead where Iran sends its stocks of low enriched uranium for an indefinite period to another country and if all goes well it could receive higher enriched uranium for use at Tehran’s reactor. However, since the reactor is the only site that produces medical radioisotopes for all of the country's hospitals, its refueling requires timely scheduling without it being used as a bargaining chip.
Moreover, Iranian technicians told the IAEA, it will take only 2 to 3 months to enrich the fuel to 20 percent level but the United States and France both wishing to prolong their monopoly over nuclear fuel enrichment activities, want to make Iran wait for longer periods like over 7 months to receive the fuel, if that’s going to be the case at all.
Iranian officials have made it clear that Tehran does not have the luxury of waiting too long to drag the process until its sole reactor runs out of fuel.
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