Iranian Heavy Water Nuke Plant Goes Online Today

avtchillsboro writes "According to an article in the NYT, an Iranian heavy water nuke plant goes online today. From the article: 'An Iranian plant that produces heavy water officially went into operation on Saturday, despite U.N. demands that Tehran stop the activity because it can be used to develop a nuclear bomb. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the plant, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes. The announcement comes days before Thursday's U.N. deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment — which also can be used to create nuclear weapons — or face economic and political sanctions.'"

Comments

RTFA

[Nimey]

Naive of me, but did anyone RTFA? It says that Iran can now produce heavy water, not that they have a nuclear reactor. FFS, I thought the NYT had higher standards of journalistic integrity than to use a misleading headline.

Dangerous but not deadly

[Loki7154]

It is my understanding that Iran would like to build a uranium nuclear device. While these are impressive--and definitely make a big boom--they are not nearly as deadly or frightening as a plutonium nuclear device. The reason? Deliverability. While a plutonium nuclear explosive can be squeezed down to a pretty small size (to fit on the tip of a cruise missile, for example), a uranium device has to be pretty massive.

Essentially, while a plutonium device is a ball of plutonium surrounded by concentric spheres of perfectly timed explosives, a uranium device is the equivalent of a 5-inch diameter gun which fires a uranium slug at a uranium target. The advantage of a plutonium device is obvious: it's small. The disadvantage of a plutonium device is the fact that it's very, very difficult to get the timing right so that you don't incinerate the plutonium before it goes critical. Meanwhile, a uranium device is dirt-simple to develop once you have the material. However, these things are huge. So huge, in fact, that you need something the size of a B29 in order to deliver it. We're talking several tons here.

Incidentally, the US developed one of each during the Manhattan Project, culminating in the two dropped bombs: Little Boy and Fat Man (no prizes for guessing which is which). While the Plutonium devices needed to be tested to make sure it worked, the scientists didn't even bother to test a uranium explosive at full scale. They just dropped the sucker.

Basically, this boils down to a pretty simple reality: even if Iran develops a uranium device, they can't deliver it. They can't put it on a missile, and I think it's a 100% certainty that Israel (or anyone else, for that matter, though Israel is the most likely target) would shoot down anything the size of a B29 flying in from Iran. If I had to guess, I'd wager that's why the Bush administration doesn't seem terribly worried about Iran. North Korea is a different matter, but Iran just isn't as big of a threat as everyone seems to be making it out to be.

And as an aside, it's certainly tempting to say "well, they could just put it on a boat and hide it and float it to a port and explode it." However, there are a couple of problems. First of all, each nuclear device that Iran develops will be a sort of force-multiplier for its power in the region. So if it develops--say--three devices, that means that losing just one is going to be a dramatic blow to its power. If you say that there's a 50/50 chance that the device will actually make it to its target, there's just no way to rationalize that risk. Much better to use the threat as leverage. The Iranian leaders don't subscribe to Western modes of thought, but they're aren't utterly irrational.

LR

Re:Dangerous but not deadly

[Kadin2048]

Although it's been a while since I've actually looked at the physics of it, the heavy-water reactor they're discussing constructing is what you'd need in order to produce plutonium from natural uranium, and thus have a modern, Pu-based weapon. It's heavy-water reactors like those which have produced most of the Plutonium that are in the U.S. (and ex-Soviet arsenals, although they did seem to be fond of graphite-moderated breeders as well). The heavy water acts as a moderator, which slows down the neutrons enough to induce beta-decay in the nonfissile uranium atoms, and convert them to plutonium...which, being chemically different from uranium, can be processed out of the spent fuel rods more easily than separating the various uranium isotopes.

WP confirms this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water#Neutron_m oderator

The uranium enrichment facilities (centrifuges, etc.) which Iran was also constructing, can be seen as a parallel bomb-making process. They're all part of the isotope separation, which brings natural uranium up to the point where it can be either reacted in a light water reactor, or used in a bomb (depending on whether you go to around 3% for a power reactor or all the way up to 90+% for a bomb). On the whole, a uranium enrichment facility is a lot less problematic than a Pu-breeder reactor, as long as it's monitored. (So that you can tell how far they're enriching the uranium.)

So you're correct about the uranium devices being somewhat less problematic than the plutonium devices; they tend to be bigger and have a lower power for their size and weight, and I don't think they can be as easily used as the initiator of a hydrogen (fusion) bomb. However, the reason the whole heavy water thing is news, is because it shows Iran is going for the smaller weapons as well.

As other people have pointed out though, right now they're working on making the heavy water that would go in a breeder reactor, it's not clear that they actually have the capability yet. The real showdown will happen once they actually have a reactor built and fueled which is capable of breeding plutonium from natural or low-enriched uranium. Allowing them to have that capability would be tacit acceptance of an Iran which is not only nuclear, but has the capability of producing nuclear cruise missles, and perhaps thermonuclear weapons as well.

Re:International Blackmail

[funwithBSD]

http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/iran/index.do
http://hrw.org/doc/?t=mideast&c=iran
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/defenders/hrd_iran /alert081606_ebadi.htm
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/02/49f87 7bc-61bb-4b7d-87e0-663033df3404.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4114621.stm

From the BBC article:

The execution of children

Torture, as well as degrading punishments such as amputation, flogging and stoning

Discrimination against women and girls

The persecution of political opponents, following last February's mass disqualification of opposition candidates in the run-up to parliamentary elections

Discrimination against minorities, including Christians, Jews, Sunni Muslims, and in particular followers of the Baha'i faith, including arbitrary arrest and detention.

Can we start being worried yet?
Can we start telling them they can't do this yet?
Or are these still wonderful people who should have A-bombs?

*sits and waits for the moral equivalency arguments*

Re:The problem is not the bomb itself

[sgt_doom]

Holy Crap! That sounds so geopolitically sophisticated...

That is, if someone has the brain and knowledge base the size of a worm --- or a Dan Quayle, Richard Perle, Bill Krystol, Paul Wolfowitz (Oh no, he's running the World Banko..)!

Of course, should one choose to apply a little knowledge to the situation to elucidate it: the Israelis have sold nuclear technology to the Chinese (plus other weapon systems), which the Chinese have sold to the Iranians, while the Soviets have sold the Iranians their SS missile tech, and the Paks have given the Iranians any nuke help they might require, while Halliburton (including when Cheney was still CEO) has sold them anything they possibly could.....Now why should we, or anyone else be worried?????

Can anyone spell "Trading with the Enemy Act"?? (Obviously, Patrick Fitzgerald can't....) and where do you get this "pariah" crap from? That whole area is about to become a Shi'a super state -- probably with Iran at the helm....

Oil economics

[UbuntuDupe]

If Iran sells the oil to *someone*, it makes no real difference who. It just means that whoever would have sold to China, would sell to whomever Iran is now not selling to. This extra constraint on the distribution network just adds a small price per barrel. That's just as empty a threat as the UN's.

Re:The problem is not the bomb itself

[diablomonic]

I wont make any other comment beyond saying: too much fox news for you all.... and pointing you at these movies:

explaining what the fuss is about israel

english MP mr Galloway blows ignorant "reporter" OUT OF THE FRICKEN WATER! hehe makes me laugh every time.

interview with iranian prime minister.[sarcasm] WOw he sounds really crazy...[/sarcasm]

two more links you should really read, though I doubt many will.

well thats all I can do. I cant FORCE you to watch them, and I doubt many will, but if even a couple do, and realise something interesting about the world as they knew it, I'll be happy

Re:The problem is not the bomb itself

[adolfojp]

Any country can make WMDs. USA has thousands of nukes itself. Iraq was forbidden the manufacture of WMDs after the 1st gulf war. The WMDs that were found were pre gulf war 1 WMDs.

Re:Heavy Water?

[JesseT]

Eh? Heavy water is used in hundreds of modern fission nuclear reactors around the world--it acts as a moderator for the fission reaction.

Re:Heavy Water?

[tao]

Wrong. See for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor - sure, you don't generate the power from the heavy water itself, but it's needed for that kind of reactor. Together with uranium, which, surprise, they also are building an enrichment plant for.

While I do not completely trust this enterprise to be peaceful, I don't trust the U.S., Israel, the U.K., Russia or any of the other countries that already *have* nuclear weapons, and in the case of the U.S. have used them. Until the nuclear weapon carrying countries that already exists have dismantled their last bombs and missiles, I'll continue finding their cries about others building research facilities or nuclear plants very hypocritical.

Well, at least this time the evidence is somewhat better than the "Oh, oh, they've got metal pipes - they're building nukes!" used as a motive to invade Iraq...

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

[Doc Ruby]

Iran started its nuclear program back when the Shah was still a US puppet. Of course, I don't expect to hear anything about that from the Bushes, who put the Iran in "Iran/Contra".

It's always been a bad idea to proliferate nukes in the Mideast, a part of the world controlled by politicians defined more by death's rewards than life's opportunities. Reading more of the history of Iran's nukes helps explain why the French are so deeply involved, and how the roles of the US and Russia are so "complicated".

Re:Count me in the skeptic camp

[LainTouko]

Peaceful purposes? The iranian prez has said Israel should be wiped off the map.

A better translation, with context:

'When the dear Imam [Khomeini] said that [the Shah's] regime must go, and that we demand a world without dependent governments, many people who claimed to have political and other knowledge [asked], 'Is it possible [that the Shahs regime can be toppled]?'

'That day, when Imam [Khomeini] began his movement, all the powers supported [the Shah's] corrupt regime and said it was not possible. However, our nation stood firm, and by now we have, for 27 years, been living without a government dependent on America. Imam [Khomeni] said: 'The rule of the East [U.S.S.R.] and of the West [U.S.] should be ended.' But the weak people who saw only the tiny world near them did not believe it.

'Nobody believed that we would one day witness the collapse of the Eastern Imperialism [i.e. the U.S.S.R], and said it was an iron regime. But in our short lifetime we have witnessed how this regime collapsed in such a way that we must look for it in libraries, and we can find no literature about it.

'Imam [Khomeini] said that Saddam [Hussein] must go, and that he would be humiliated in a way that was unprecedented. And what do you see today? A man who, 10 years ago, spoke as proudly as if he would live for eternity is today chained by the feet, and is now being tried in his own country... '

'Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise.'

When you see a quote attributed to someone who was unlikely to have been speaking English, remember to maintain a healthy degree of scepticism.

Re:The problem is not the bomb itself

[bensafrickingenius]

"Some of the other Arab states should be pointing that fact out to their Iranian brethren."

Except that Iran is not an Arab state. No more than is Indonesia. "Arab" simply describes people who speak Arabic. Muslim!=Arab. Oh, and the Arab states *certainly* don't consider Iranians their "brethren." Arabs and Persians hate each other!

Re:The problem is not the bomb itself

[mpe]

Sovereign states may have whatever weapons they wish, but when their leadership pronounces that their goal is to wipe out a neighbor state (Israel), it no longer becomes acceptable to the international community to allow such weapons programs to go forth.

Who is this "international community"? Would it be ok if they didn't announce it first?

If Iran does develop a nuclear bomb and uses it against Israel, the retaliatory strike from Israel would result in casualties that are simply beyond anything any previous war has shown us. Yet Iran's leadership may well be foolish enough to do it anyway, if only to ensure that the rest of the middle east would destroy Israel.

The leaderships of Israel and the US don't exactly qualify as sane but even they might reconsider attacking a nuclear armed state.

Never underestimate the blind arrogance of religious zealotry.

No shortage of that with the Israeli and US Governments right now.

The US cannot learn to live with another nation developing nuclear weapons who wants to destroy another nation.

Why should the US care about Asian countries pointing nuclear weapons at other Asian countries? Why would a nuclear exchange between Iraq and Israel be worst than one between India and Pakistan...

Say what you will about current US foreign policy, but we go out of our way to minimize civilian casualties and avoid use of excessive force.

The simplist way to do this would be not to invade other countries.

After 9/11, two options were available to the Bush administration - nuclear strikes on al Qeida bases in Afghanistan, and special forces teams. There was no possibility of ground invasion for some time.

Actually there were plenty of things the US Government could have done, but did not do.