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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Debka claims Iran making a super sized enrichment plant at Neyshabour in Khorassan |
| 2006-04-14 |
| [..] President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad .. paid a stealthy visit to Neyshabour in Khorassan .. There, he inspected a project he omitted to mention in his Mashhad speech about low-level enrichment, namely, a top-secret plant under construction that is designed to run 155,000 centrifuges, enough to enrich uranium for 3-5 nuclear bombs a year. This is Project B, or the hidden face of the enrichment plant open to inspection at Natanz. This plant, due for completion next October, is scheduled to go on line at the end of 2007. According to our intelligence sources, running-in has begun at some sections of the Neyshabour installation, which is located 600 km northeast of Tehran. .. the Neyshabour plant has been built 150 m deep under farmland covered with mixed vegetable crops and dubbed Shahid Moradian, in the name of a war martyr as obscure as its existence. ... with 54,000 centrifuges, the Iranians could produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb in 16 days. .. since 155,000 aprox = 3x 54,000 that would be 5days per bomb. ENJOY |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #7 The Chinese design is for 25 kT bomb. Large enough to do serious damage. Now China transferred both HEU and Pu bomb cores to Pakistan. Would they do the same for Iran? Doubtful - the American reaction would be severe... |
| Posted by: john 2006-04-14 20:52 |
| #6 Valentine's points are acurate within the context of a solely Iranian-produced, Iranian-managed, Iranian-controlled "indigenous" bomb - however, the parallel fear during the Cold War was for one side to quickly or covertly transfer nuclear weapons to proxy nations in times of war or crisis. Few iff any in Washington or the USDOD believe that North Korea controls its own military or warfighting assets, while the same also do not believe that Russia-China will long tolerate a Radical Iran having a large enough nuclear arsenal [of any caliber] to threaten Russia's andor China's regional or global ambitions. As long as America is the focii of Radical Iran's hate/angst, Russia-China will for now tolerate Iran having at best a minor handful of low-yield nukes, enough to humiliate Washington before the MSM-World but not enough to seriously challenge or defeat any Russo-Chinese anti-US intervention force. In any case, it is useless in LR for America to only take out Iran's nuclear capability/infrastructure but NOT induce or empower "regime change" in favor of democracy. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-04-14 20:47 |
| #5 Provided by AQ Khan The documents also included a drawing showing a cascade layout for 6 cascades of 168 machines each and a small plant of 2000 centrifuges arranged in the same hall. Also among the documents was one related to the procedural requirements for the reduction of UF6 to metal in small quantities, and on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical form |
| Posted by: john 2006-04-14 20:43 |
| #4 from the article there was this too: Russian experts completed the initial plans in 2003 and construction began in early 2004. In late 2005, Bulgarian transport planes delivered tens of thousands of centrifuges from Belarus and Ukraine; they were transported directly to Neyshabour. In January 2006, 23 Ukrainian engineers arrived to start installing the equipment, joined in February by 46 Belarusian nuclear experts who are working in shifts to prepare the 155,000 P-1 and P-2 centrifuges for operation. This compares with 60,000 in Nathanz – of which 40,000 are accessible for inspection while 20,000 are hidden in closed subterranean chambers. Neyshabour, however, still needs to undergo experimental stages, according to our Iranian sources. It is far from sure that the Ukrainian and Belarusian experts will be able to put together a well-synchronized centrifuge project that is workable in the long term. The Natanz project was long slowed by serious malfunctions in running the centrifuges purchased from Pakistan. and this claim: Tehran’s “success” in enriching uranium, announced with fanfare last Tuesday, actually happened, according to our sources, eight months ago. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-04-14 19:58 |
| #3 Bomb will not be Little Boy type. So HEU needed will be less - 15-20 kg. Thanks to AQ Khan Iranians have the blueprints for a Chinese designed and tested (1966) implosion type weapon, one small enough to fit on a missile. Mass of 500 kg, size - less than one meter in diameter. As part of disarmament inspections, early Chinese nuclear weapons designs were handed over to IAEA inspectors by Libyan scientists, wrapped in plastic bags bearing an address in Islamabad. The possession by a third party of complete step-by-step instructions for a workable implosion-type bomb raised anew concerns over China's proliferation history with Pakistan, as notes included in the package of documents reportedly suggested that China continued to mentor Pakistani scientists on the finer points of bomb-building over several years following the technology transfers. Both China and Pakistan have refused to admit any knowledge of the transfer. |
| Posted by: john 2006-04-14 19:50 |
| #2 with 54,000 centrifuges, the Iranians could produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb in 16 days. .. since 155,000 aprox = 3x 54,000 that would be 5days per bomb. Is this calculation done using FAS SWU calculator? Assuming 85% enrichment (weapons grade HEU) for an amount of about 50kg you'd need about 8000 kg-SWU per year do it. Assuming that the plant in Natanz has parts for 3000 centrifuges mean in about a year depending on when they started they'd have enough material for about a nuke, again this would be of Little Boy level and design type. Course this also means they need to mine about 13,000 metric tons of natural grade sandstone ore to get that much. That would be a significant section of known Iranian stores of U308. Thats the good news. Heres the bad news. According to the calulcations above and those are somewhat pessimistic at that we got about a year since they began enrichment before their first nuke. Its also a question of how fast are they mining the ore. The absolute low ball end of the argument is they only will have 350 odd centrifuges (including the 164 they just announced so I'm just merely adding a bit more than double that figure for the most conservative estimate). With 350 units at roughly at 3 kg-SWU rate you're probably looking at a bomb in about 7 years for the 50kg weapons grade level. |
| Posted by: Valentine 2006-04-14 19:12 |
| #1 Centrifuges won't run without electricity and we can very easily make it very dark in Iran. Further, we can gut their economy by taking out the 9 refineries they have. They have oil to sell, but they have to import most of the gasoline and petroleum distillates necessary for a modern industrial state to operate. They can bury the nuke stuff, but not the infrastructure necessary to make it work. Not to mention, we should make very certain that we arrange personal meetings with Allah for the upper layers of the regime and as many of the IRGs as we can find. |
| Posted by: RWV 2006-04-14 18:43 |