Last update - 00:00 13/02/2008
Iran introduces uranium gas in new-generation centrifuges
By The Associated Press
Iran's new generation of advanced centrifuges has begun processing small quantities of the gas that can be used to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The diplomats emphasized that the centrifuges were working with only minute amounts of the uranium gas used as the feed stock for Iran's uranium enrichment program. And one of them said Tehran had set up only 10 of the machines - far too few to produce enriched uranium in the quantities needed for industrial scale energy or a weapons program.
Still, the information revealed previously unknown details of the state of the Islamic Republic's experiments with its domestically developed IR-2 centrifuges, which can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate of the machines that now form the backbone of its nuclear project.
The existence of the IR-2 was made known only last week by diplomats accredited to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency probing Iran's nuclear program for suspicions it may have been designed to make weapons.
But diplomats back then told the AP that the machines appeared to be running empty and could not quantify the number of the centrifuges had been set up at the experimental facility linked to Iran's growing enrichment underground enrichment plant at Natanz.
Fleshing out previous information, one of the diplomats said Wednesday that the centrifuges were set up January 20 and began processing minute amounts of the uranium gas soon afterward as part of testing the machines. He and others accredited to the IAEA demanded anonymity because their information was confidential.
Iran is under two sets of UN Security Council sanctions for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, which it started developing during nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity built on illicit purchases and revealed only five years ago.
That secrecy heightened suspicions about Iran's intent, but Iranian leaders argued the country has a right to run a peaceful enrichment program to generate electricity and dismissed the UN demands, saying they planned to expand the project rather than freeze it.
Until last week's revelations that Iran had developed its own advanced centrifuge, Iran had publicly focused on working with P1 centrifuges - outmoded machines that it acquired on the black market in the 1980s.
More than 3,000 of the older centrifuges are processing uranium gas in the large underground hall near Natanz, a city nearly 500 kilometers (about 300 miles) south of Tehran. And an IAEA report in November said Iran has stockpiled nearly 300 tons of the precursor gas used in enrichment. That would suffice for about 40 nuclear bombs were it spun to weapons grade.
Diplomats described the IR-2 as a hybrid of the P-2 centrifuge once peddled on the black market by A.Q. Khan, the scientist who oversaw Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons.
The P-2 can enrich uranium gas up to three times faster than a P-1, but it is made from maraged steel - a high-nickel, low-carbon steel that is difficult to manufacture and hard to smuggle through international controls.
They said the Iranians had circumvented that problem by making the centrifuge's rotor tubes out of carbon fiber, presumably using machines and technology developed for Tehran's missile sector and using a German version as a model.
Former UN nuclear inspector David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks countries under nuclear suspicion, said 1,200 of the more advanced machines could produce enough material for a single nuclear warhead in a year, compared to 3,000 of the older model.
He also said 10 centrifuges already processing uranium gas indicated that they have been linked to each other in a cascade - the configuration used in industrial size operations and an indication of a fairly advanced stage of testing.
Here's a centrifuge largely developed at a secret site, and it appears they have gotten further along than people have anticipated, he said.
Iran has stonewalled the UN nuclear watchdog agency for years on details of its centrifuge development program, but in recent months has shown more cooperation under a plan agreed to last year that commits Tehran to lifting the veil of secrecy on all past nuclear activities.
Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, was given new information on Iran's new generation of centrifuges during talks in Tehran - a priority as the agency tries to establish how far along Iran is in developing the technology.
ElBaradei is to report on the progress of his probe next month to the
35-nation IAEA board.