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Inside Iran's Uranium Conversion Facility

[Guardian-UK] Julian Borger - The doors of the Isfahan plant were opened last week to a small group of journalists from Europe and America in a rare bid for transparency by Iran. The conversion plant is a cluster of squat yellow-brick buildings ringed by anti-aircraft batteries. Inside, a dense network of shining vats, pipes and gauges turn processed uranium ore, "yellow cake," into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a gas which is a halfway house to making both nuclear fuel and nuclear bombs. Spinning the UF6 gas until it is up to 5% rich in U-235 produces nuclear fuel. Keep spinning until it is 90% enriched and you have the makings of a bomb. One huge question mark hanging over Isfahan is: why is the government in such a rush to enrich fuel, when it has no nuclear power plants in which to use it? There is a single reactor nearing completion at Bushehr, but it is only supposed to use nuclear fuel provided by Russia.
2007-07-31 01:00:00
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