WarSclerotic

An Important Step on the Way to the Bomb.

By Dr. Rafael Ofek

11/6/2013

According to a summary of news agency reports from Tehran, a ceremony was conducted on Saturday, June 8, 2013, to dedicate the installation of the heavy water container at reactor IR-40 which Iran has been building over the last decade. The ceremony, attended by the Iranian president Ahmadinejad, was held at the reactor site in Khondab, near Arak, about 250 kilometers south-west of Tehran. Fereidoun Abbasi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, who accompanied Ahmadinejad, was quoted as saying: “The installation represents a major step in the progress of this project.”

In Iran’s assessments, the following stage of the project, pre-commissioning, involving the use of dummy fuel assemblies and light water, will be carried out during the last quarter of 2013. The commissioning stage – operation using real fuel assemblies and heavy water, will take place during the first quarter of 2014. Regular operation will commence during the last quarter of 2014.

The container is the main component of the reactor. Heavy water is used at the reactor as a moderator and coolant, and the amount required for reactor IR-40 is estimated at 80 to 90 tons. Nuclear combustion takes place inside the nuclear fuel assemblies positioned in the numerous channels inside the container. The nuclear fuel for IR-40, unlike the other Iranian reactors, is natural uranium oxide (unenriched uranium).

Owing to its structure and characteristics, IR-40 is suitable for producing nuclear weapons-grade plutonium. Production capacity is estimated at 8 to 10 kilograms per year – enough to produce two nuclear weapon cores per year. On the other hand, Iran claims that IR-40 will be used to produce radioisotopes for medical purposes, and that it would replace the old research reactor in Tehran, supplied to Iran in 1967 by the US. However, this claim contradicts Iran’s declaration according to which the massive amount of uranium it had enriched to 20% grade is intended for the production of nuclear fuel for the research reactor in Tehran.

In a report issued last May, the IAEA complained that despite its commitment in 2003 and the UN Security Council resolutions notwithstanding, Iran has not yet suspended the heavy water reactor project, as it has not suspended the uranium enrichment project. Moreover, since 2006, Iran has not provided the IAEA with the complete design data of the reactor, as it was required to do according to the IAEA code.

Additionally, Iran continues to prevent the IAEA from supervising the heavy water production plant, also located in Khondab. The capacity of this plant is 16 tons of heavy water per year. The reasoning for this state of affairs is a formal one: in Iran’s opinion, heavy water is not a controlled nuclear substance, as it is not a fissionable material like uranium or plutonium, and is not even radioactive.

The implementation of Iran’s plan to produce military-grade plutonium depends on the activation of a “hot lab” that would separate the plutonium created inside the uranium in the nuclear fuel while the reactor is in operation. The uranium fission process taking place at the reactor involves the production of various radioactive substances and massive radiation. Consequently, massive protection is required in order to handle the used nuclear fuel. Iran faces two options – establish a new “hot lab”, a project that could take a few years, or adapt and equip the existing labs at the nuclear center in Tehran, which, for the time being, are under IAEA supervision. It is difficult to estimate the time required in order to acquire the required equipment, install it and make these labs serviceable. In any case, the implications of operating a “hot lab” to separate plutonium will bring the game Iran plays vis-à-vis IAEA and the international community to an abrupt and final halt.

Anyway, as far as the aspect of miniaturizing the nuclear weapons and fitting them into the warheads of ballistic missiles is concerned, plutonium is superior to enriched uranium, owing to the fact that the amount needed in order to produce a core for a small plutonium bomb is about three times smaller than the one needed to produce a core for an enriched uranium bomb.

Lt. Col. (Res.) Dr. Rafael Ofek is an expert in the physics and technology of nuclear weapons. He had served in the Israeli intelligence community as a senior researcher and analyst.

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